Genesis 8

1 And God kept Noah in mind, and all the living things and the cattle which were with him in the ark: and God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters went down.

But God (did not forget/thought) about Noah and all the wild animals and all the kinds of livestock that were with him in the boat. So one day God sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the wind caused the water [to begin] to recede.

2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were shut, and the rain from heaven was stopped.

God caused the water that was under the earth to stop bursting forth, and he caused the floodgates of water from the sky to close so that it stopped raining.

3 And the waters went slowly back from the earth, and at the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters were lower.

The water on the earth gradually receded. 150 days after the flood began,

4 And on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

(on the 17th day of the seventh month [of that year/late in March]), the boat came to rest on one of the mountains in the Ararat region.

5 And still the waters went on falling, till on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

The water continued to recede until, on the first day of the tenth month [of that year], the tops of other mountains became visible.

6 Then, after forty days, through the open window of the ark which he had made,

40 days later, Noah opened the window that he had made in the side of the boat, and sent out a raven.

7 Noah sent out a raven, which went this way and that till the waters were gone from the earth.

The raven flew back and forth [to and from the boat] until the water was completely gone.

8 And he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had gone from the face of the earth;

Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had all receded on the ground.

9 But the dove saw no resting-place for her foot, and came back to the ark, for the waters were still over all the earth; and he put out his hand, and took her into the ark.

But the dove did not find any place to perch, so it flew back to Noah in the boat, because there was still water all over the surface of the earth. So Noah reached out his hand and took the dove back inside the boat.

10 And after waiting another seven days, he sent the dove out again;

Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out of the boat again.

11 And the dove came back at evening, and in her mouth was an olive-leaf broken off: so Noah was certain that the waters had gone down on the earth.

This time the dove returned to him in the evening and, [surprisingly], in its beak there was a leaf from an olive tree that the dove had just plucked. Then Noah knew that the water had truly receded from the surface of the ground.

12 And after seven days more, he sent the dove out again, but she did not come back to him.

Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13 And in the six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters were dry on the earth: and Noah took the cover off the ark and saw that the face of the earth was dry.

Noah was now 601 years old. By the first day of the first month [of the Jewish year], the water had completely drained away from the ground. Noah removed the covering on top of the ark, and he was surprised to see that the surface of the ground was drying.

14 And on the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.

By the 27th day of the next month, the ground was completely dry.

15 And God said to Noah,

Then God said to Noah,

16 Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives.

“Leave the boat, along with your wife and your sons and their wives.

17 Take out with you every living thing which is with you, birds and cattle and everything which goes on the earth, so that they may have offspring and be fertile and be increased on the earth.

Bring out with you all the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that scurry across the ground, in order that they can spread all over the earth and become very numerous.”

18 And Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives;

So Noah left the boat, along with his wife and his sons and their wives.

19 And every beast and bird and every living thing of every sort which goes on the earth, went out of the ark.

And every kind of creature, including all those that scurry across the ground, all the birds, every creature that moves on the earth, left the boat. They left the boat in groups of their own species.

20 And Noah made an altar to the Lord, and from every clean beast and bird he made burned offerings on the altar.

Then Noah built a (stone altar/place for offering sacrifices) to Yahweh. Then he took some of the animals that Yahweh had said were acceptable as sacrifices and killed them. Then he burned them whole on the altar.

21 And when the sweet smell came up to the Lord, he said in his heart, I will not again put a curse on the earth because of man, for the thoughts of man's heart are evil from his earliest days; never again will I send destruction on all living things as I have done.

When Yahweh smelled the pleasant odor, he was pleased with the sacrifice. Then he said to himself, “I will never again devastate everything on the earth because of the sinful things people do. Even though everything that people think is evil from the time they are young, I will not destroy all the living creatures again, as I did this time.

22 While the earth goes on, seed time and the getting in of the grain, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not come to an end.

As long as the earth exists, each year there will be seasons for planting seeds and seasons for harvesting crops. Each year there will be times when it is cold and times when it is hot, summer and winter (OR, rainy season and dry season). Each day there will be daytime and nighttime.”

A Dove is Sent Forth from the Ark