1But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; 2the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3and the waters gradually receded from the earth. At the end of one hundred fifty days the waters had abated; 4and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5The waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

6At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; 9but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. 10He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; 11and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more.

13In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw that the face of the ground was drying. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. 15Then God said to Noah, 16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. 17Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.

God's Promise to Noah

20Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

22As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night,

shall not cease.”

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Genesis 8

1But God hadn't forgotten about Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the ark. God sent a wind to blow over the earth, and the floodwaters started to drop. 2The subterranean waters were closed off, and the heavy rainfall was stopped. 3The floodwaters steadily receded from the earth. They had gone down so much that by 150 days after the flood began 4the ark grounded on the mountains of Ararat. This happened on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. 5The waters continued to drop so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of mountains could be seen.

6Forty days later Noah opened the window he'd made in the ark, 7and sent a raven out. It flew back and forth until the water on the earth had dried up. 8Then he sent a dove out to see if the waters had gone down enough to expose dry ground. 9But the dove couldn't find anywhere to land. So it came back to Noah in the ark because water was still covering the whole earth. He reached out his hand, picked up the dove, and took it back into the ark with him. 10He waited another seven days and sent the dove out from the ark again. 11When it came back to him in the evening it had a freshly-picked olive leaf in its beak, so Noah knew the floodwaters were mainly gone from the earth. 12Again he waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but this time it didn't return to him.

13By now Noah was 601, and by the first day of the first month, the floodwaters on the earth were gone. Noah pulled back the ark's covering and saw that the ground was drying out. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.

15Then God told Noah, 16“Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. 17Let all the animals go—the birds, the wild animals, the creatures that run along the ground—so that they can breed and increase their numbers on the earth.” 18So Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, left the ark. 19All the animals, all the creatures that run along the ground, all the birds—everything that lives on land—also left, each kind leaving together.

20Noah built an altar, and sacrificed some of the clean animals and birds as a burnt offering. 21The Lord accepted#8:21. “Accepted”: literally, “smelled a pleasing aroma.” This is a “figurative extension” of this sensory process which meant that in the same way when we like something, and by extension, accept it, so does God. the sacrifice, and said to himself, “I won't ever again curse the ground because of human beings, even though every single thought in their minds is evil from childhood. I won't ever destroy all life again as I have just done. 22As long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never come to an end.”

Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com

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Genesis 8

Genesis 8