Psalm 124^[a]

A song of ascents;^[b] by David.

8 But God remembered^[a] Noah and all the wild animals and domestic animals that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to blow over^[b] the earth and the waters receded. ² The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed,^[c] and the rain stopped falling from the sky. ³ The waters kept receding steadily^[d] from the earth, so that they^[e] had gone down^[f] by the end of the 150 days. ⁴ On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat.^{[g] 5} The waters kept on receding^[h] until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible.^[i]

⁶ At the end of forty days,^[j] Noah opened the window he had made in the ark^{[k] 7} and sent out a raven; it kept flying back and forth^[l] until the waters had dried up on the earth.

⁸ Then Noah^[m] sent out a dove^[n] to see if the waters had receded^[o] from the surface of the ground. ⁹ The dove could not find a resting place for its feet because water still covered^[p] the surface of the entire earth, and so it returned to Noah^[q] in the ark. He stretched out his hand, took the dove,^[r] and brought it back into the ark.^{[s] 10} He waited seven more days and then sent out the dove again from the ark. ¹¹ When^[t] the dove returned to him in the evening, there was^[u] a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. ¹² He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again,^[v] but it did not return to him this time.^[w]

¹³ In Noah’s six hundred and first year,^[x] in the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that^[y] the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ And by the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth^[z] was dry.

¹⁵ Then God spoke to Noah and said, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you all the living creatures that are with you. Bring out^[aa] every living thing, including the birds, animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let them increase^[ab] and be fruitful and multiply on the earth!”^[ac]

¹⁸ Noah went out along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups.

The Believer’s Freedom from Sin’s Domination

6 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? ² Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.^[a]

⁵ For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.^{[b] 6} We know that^[c] our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us,^[d] so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)^[e]

⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know^[f] that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die^[g] again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ So you too consider yourselves^[h] dead to sin, but^[i] alive to God in Christ Jesus.