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The Flood Ends

But God remembered Noah and all the ·wild [beasts] and ·tame animals [cattle] with him in the ·boat [ark]. He made a wind ·blow [pass] over the earth, and the water ·went down [subsided]. The ·underground springs [L fountains/springs of the deep] stopped flowing, and the ·clouds [floodgates; L windows] in the ·sky [heavens] ·stopped pouring down rain [L were closed and the rain from the sky/heavens were restrained]. The water that covered the earth began to ·go down [recede]. After one hundred fifty days ·it [L the waters] had ·gone down [abated] so much that the ·boat [ark] touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat [C in ancient Urartu, present-day eastern Turkey] on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. The water continued to ·go down [recede] so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

Forty days later Noah opened the ·window [hatch] he had made in the ·boat [ark], and he sent out a raven. It ·flew [L went] here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had ·dried up [subsided] from the ground. The dove could not find a place to ·land [L set/rest its foot] because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the ·boat [ark]. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and brought it back into the boat.

10 After [L waiting] seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the ·boat [ark], 11 and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its ·mouth [beak]. Then Noah knew that the ·ground was almost dry [L waters had subsided from the ground]. 12 ·Seven days later [L After waiting another seven days] he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back.

13 When Noah was six hundred and one years old, in the first day of the first month of that year, the water was dried up from the ·land [earth]. Noah removed the covering of the ·boat [ark] and saw that the ·land [L face of the ground] was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the ·land [earth] was completely dry.

15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “You and your wife, your sons, and their wives should go out of the ·boat [ark]. 17 Bring every ·animal [L living thing of all flesh] out of the ·boat [ark] with you—the birds, ·animals [beasts; livestock], and everything that crawls on the earth. ·Let them have many young ones so that they might […so they may swarm on earth and be fruitful and] ·grow in number [multiply; 1:22].”

18 So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. 19 Every ·animal [living thing], everything that ·crawls [creeps] on the earth, and every bird [L and everything that crawls/creeps] went out of the ·boat [ark] by families.

20 Then Noah built an altar [C a place to offer sacrifices] to the Lord. He took some of all the clean [C in a ritual sense] birds and ·animals [beasts; livestock], and he ·burned them on the altar as offerings to God [L offered a whole burnt offering on the altar; Lev. 1]. 21 The Lord ·was pleased with these sacrifices [L smelled the sweet savor/smell] and said ·to himself [L in his heart], “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. ·Their thoughts [The inclination of their hearts] are evil even ·when [from the time] they are young, but I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

22 “As long as the earth continues,
planting and harvest,
cold and hot,
summer and winter,
day and night
will not stop.”

The Flood Recedes

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began,[a] the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Two and a half months later,[b] as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.

After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up. He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. 11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back.

13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began,[c] the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14 Two more months went by,[d] and at last the earth was dry!

15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. 17 Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.”

18 So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. 19 And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose.[e] 21 And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. 22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

Footnotes

  1. 8:4 Hebrew on the seventeenth day of the seventh month; see 7:11.
  2. 8:5 Hebrew On the first day of the tenth month; see 7:11 and note on 8:4.
  3. 8:13 Hebrew On the first day of the first month; see 7:11.
  4. 8:14 Hebrew The twenty-seventh day of the second month arrived; see note on 8:13.
  5. 8:20 Hebrew every clean animal and every clean bird.