1Then God #Gen. 19:29; Ex. 2:24; 1 Sam. 1:19; Ps. 105:42; 106:4remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. #Ex. 14:21; 15:10; Job 12:15; Ps. 29:10; Is. 44:27; Nah. 1:4And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2#Gen. 7:11The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also #Deut. 11:17stopped, and #Gen. 7:4, 12; Job 38:37the rain from heaven was restrained. 3And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end #Gen. 7:24of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

6So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah #Gen. 6:16opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. 8He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 9But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. 10And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. 11Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 12So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.

13And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. 14And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.

15Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16“Go out of the ark, #Gen. 7:13you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and #Gen. 1:22, 28; 9:1, 7be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

God’s Covenant with Creation

20Then Noah built an #Gen. 12:7; Ex. 29:18, 25altar to the Lord, and took of #Gen. 7:2; Lev. 11every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered #Gen. 22:2; Ex. 10:25burnt offerings on the altar. 21And the Lord smelled #Ex. 29:18, 25; Lev. 1:9; Ezek. 20:41; 2 Cor. 2:15; Eph. 5:2a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again #Gen. 3:17; 6:7, 13, 17; Is. 54:9curse the ground for man’s sake, although the #Gen. 6:5; 11:6; Job 14:4; Ps. 51:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 1:21; 3:23; Eph. 2:1–3imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; #Gen. 9:11, 15nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

22“While the earth #Is. 54:9remains,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Winter and summer,

And #Ps. 74:16; Jer. 33:20, 25day and night

Shall not cease.”

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Genesis 8

The Water Goes Down

1God 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. 2God 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. 3For 150 days the water slowly went down. 4Then on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year, the boat came to rest somewhere in the Ararat mountains. 5The water kept going down, and the mountain tops could be seen on the first day of the tenth month.

6-7Forty days later Noah opened a window to send out a raven, but it kept flying around until the water had dried up. 8Noah wanted to find out if the water had gone down, so he sent out a dove. 9Deep 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.

10Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again. 11It returned in the evening, holding in its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew the water was finally going down. 12He waited seven more days before sending the dove out again, and this time it did not return.

13Noah 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#8.13 made … boat: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text. and saw that the ground was getting dry. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.

15God said to Noah, 16“You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat. 17Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can mate and live all over the earth.” 18After Noah and his family had left the boat, 19the living creatures left in groups of their own kind.

The Lord's Promise for the Earth

20Noah 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.#8.20 animal … sacrifice: See the note at 7.2. 21The 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.

22As long as the earth remains,

there will be planting

and harvest,

cold and heat;

winter and summer,

day and night.

Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)

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Genesis 8

Genesis 8