Genesis 8

Chapter 8

The Flood Recedes

1 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.2 The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped.3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days,4 exactly five months from the time the flood began,t the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

5 Two and a half months later,t as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.
6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up.8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground.9 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,t 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,t 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.t21 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.”

GENESIS 8

The Water Goes Down

1 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 boatt 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

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.