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

1God remembered Noah, all those alive, and all the animals with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth so that the waters receded. 2The springs of the deep sea and the skies#8.2 Or the windows of the skies closed up. The skies held back the rain. 3The waters receded gradually from the earth. After one hundred fifty days, the waters decreased; 4and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the Ararat mountains. 5The waters decreased gradually until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the mountain peaks appeared.

6After forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. 7He sent out a raven, and it flew back and forth until the waters over the entire earth had dried up. 8Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters on all of the fertile land had subsided, 9but the dove found no place to set its foot. It returned to him in the ark since waters still covered the entire earth. Noah stretched out his hand, took it, and brought it back into the ark. 10He waited seven more days and sent the dove out from the ark again. 11The dove came back to him in the evening, grasping a torn olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the waters were subsiding from the earth. 12He waited seven more days and sent out the dove, but it didn’t come back to him again. 13In Noah’s six hundred first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters dried up from the earth. Noah removed the ark’s hatch and saw that the surface of the fertile land had dried up. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day, the earth was dry.

15God spoke to Noah, 16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17Bring out with you all the animals of every kind—birds, livestock, everything crawling on the ground—so that they may populate the earth, be fertile, and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out of the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. 19All the animals, all the livestock,#8.19 LXX; MT lacks all the livestock. all the birds, and everything crawling on the ground, came out of the ark by their families.

God’s promise for the earth

20Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of the clean large animals and some of the clean birds, and placed entirely burned offerings on the altar. 21The LORD smelled the pleasing scent, and the LORD thought to himself, I will not curse the fertile land anymore because of human beings since the ideas of the human mind are evil from their youth. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.

22As long as the earth exists,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and hot,

summer and autumn,

day and night

will not cease.

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Genesis 8

Genesis 8