Genesis 8
8
The Flood Subsides
1But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. 2Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; 3and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. 4In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. 5The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.
6Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; 7and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land; 9but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her, and brought her into the ark to himself. 10So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark. 11The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. 12Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again.
13Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. 15Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 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 of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark.
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. 21The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
22While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
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Genesis 8
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