Genesis 8
Contemporary English Version
The Water Goes Down
8 God did not forget about Noah and the animals with him in the boat. So God made a wind blow, and the water started going down. 2 God stopped up the places where the water had been gushing out from under the earth. He also closed up the sky, and the rain stopped. 3 For 150 days the water slowly went down. 4 Then on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year, the boat came to rest somewhere in the Ararat mountains. 5 The water kept going down, and the mountain tops could be seen on the first day of the tenth month.
6-7 Forty days later Noah opened a window to send out a raven, but it kept flying around until the water had dried up. 8 Noah wanted to find out if the water had gone down, so he sent out a dove. 9 Deep water was still everywhere, and when the dove could not find a place to land, it flew back to the boat. Then Noah held out his hand and helped it back in.
10 Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again. 11 It returned in the evening, holding in its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew the water was finally going down. 12 He waited seven more days before sending the dove out again, and this time it did not return.
13 Noah was now 601 years old. And by the first day of that year, almost all the water had gone away. Noah made an opening in the roof of the boat[a] and saw that the ground was getting dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.
15 God said to Noah, 16 “You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat. 17 Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can mate and live all over the earth.” 18 After Noah and his family had left the boat, 19 the living creatures left in groups of their own kind.
The Lord's Promise for the Earth
20 Noah built an altar where he could offer sacrifices to the Lord. Then he offered on the altar one of each kind of animal and bird that could be used for a sacrifice.[b] 21 The smell of the burning offering pleased the Lord, and he said:
Never again will I punish the earth for the sinful things its people do. All of them have evil thoughts from the time they are young, but I will never destroy everything that breathes, as I did this time.
22 As long as the earth remains,
there will be planting
and harvest,
cold and heat;
winter and summer,
day and night.
Genesis 8
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
8 And God [earnestly] remembered Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind blow over the land, and the waters sank down and abated.
2 Also the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the gushing rain from the sky was checked,
3 And the waters receded from the land continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had diminished.
4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat [in Armenia].
5 And the waters continued to diminish until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the high hills were seen.
6 At the end of [another] forty days Noah opened a window of the ark which he had made
7 And sent forth a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters were dried up from the land.
8 Then he sent forth a dove to see if the waters had decreased from the surface of the ground.
9 But the dove found no resting-place on which to roost, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were [yet] on the face of the whole land. So he put forth his hand and drew her to him into the ark.
10 He waited another seven days and again sent forth the dove out of the ark.
11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a newly sprouted and freshly plucked olive leaf! So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the land.
12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, but she did not return to him any more.
13 In the year 601 [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the land. And Noah [a]removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was drying.
14 And on the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was entirely dry.
15 And God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 Go forth from the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you.
17 Bring forth every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the ground—that they may breed abundantly on the land and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.
18 And Noah went forth, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days].
19 Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird—and whatever moves on the land—went forth by families out of the ark.
20 And Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean [four-footed] animal and of every clean fowl or bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing odor [a scent of satisfaction to His heart], the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination (the strong desire) of man’s heart is evil and wicked from his youth; neither will I ever again smite and destroy every living thing, as I have done.
22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Footnotes
- Genesis 8:13 Possibly overhanging eaves which prevented the rain from coming through the perforated window space had also prevented Noah from seeing the mountaintops. It is well to remember that the Architect of Noah’s ark was the omniscient Scientist Whose “ways are past finding out,” though men have learned much from them through the centuries. Nothing was lacking in Noah’s ark to keep it from being suited for all that was required of it. The comfortable, light, well-ventilated, watertight, perfectly planned boat, large enough to accommodate all the original land animals intelligently and to permit the four human couples to live separately and in peace, needs no apology today. “In 1609 at Hoorn, in Holland, the Netherlandish Mennonite, P. Jansen, produced a vessel after the pattern of the ark, only smaller, whereby he proved it was well adapted for floating, and would carry a cargo greater by one-third than any other form of like cubical content” (J.P. Lange, A Commentary). It revolutionized shipbuilding. By 1900 every large vessel on the high seas was definitely inclined toward the proportions of Noah’s ark (as verified by “Lloyd’s Register of Shipping,” The World Almanac). Later, ships were built longer for speed, a matter of no concern to Noah.
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