Genesis 8

The Flood Ends

1But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and tame animals with him in the boat. God made a wind blow over the earth. And the water went down. 2The underground springs stopped flowing. And the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. 3-4The water that covered the earth began to go down. After 150 days the water had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat.# The ancient land of Urartu, an area in Eastern Turkey. This was on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. 5The water continued to go down. By the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

6Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat. 7He sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. 8Then Noah sent out a dove. This was to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. 9The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth. So it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird. And he brought it back into the boat.

10After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat. 11And that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. 12Seven days later he sent the dove out again. But this time it did not come back.

13Noah was now 601 years old. It was the first day of the first month of that year. The water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.

15Then God said to Noah, 16“You and your wife, your sons and their wives should go out of the boat. 17Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones and let them grow in number.”

18So Noah went out with his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives. 19Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth and every bird went out of the boat. They left by families.

20Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. Noah took some of all the clean birds and animals. And he burned them on the altar as offerings to God. 21The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices. He said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young. But I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

22“As long as the earth continues,

there will be planting and harvest.

Cold and hot,

summer and winter,

day and night

will not stop.”

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Genesis 8

The Flood Recedes

1God remembered Noah,#Gn 19:29; Ex 2:24; 1Sm 1:19; Ps 105:42 as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth,#Ex 14:21; 15:10; Jb 12:15; Ps 29:10; Is 44:27; Nah 1:4 and the water began to subside. 2The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped.#Gn 7:11 3The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the water had decreased significantly.#Gn 7:24 4The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.#2Kg 19:37; Is 37:38; Jr 51:27

5The water continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible. 6After forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made, 7and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth’s surface had gone down, 9but the dove found no resting place for its foot. It returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole earth. He reached out and brought it into the ark to himself. 10So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again. 11When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water on the earth’s surface had gone down. 12After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but it did not return to him again. 13In the six hundred first year,#8:13 = of Noah’s life in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark’s cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

The Lord’s Promise

15Then God spoke to Noah, 16“Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17Bring out all the living creatures that are with you — birds, livestock, those that crawl on the earth — and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”#Gn 1:22,28; 9:1 18So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, came out. 19All the animals, all the creatures that crawl, and all the flying creatures — everything that moves on the earth — came out of the ark by their families.

20Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma,#Ex 29:18; Lv 1:9; Ezk 16:19; 20:41; 2Co 2:15; Eph 5:2; Php 4:18 he said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground#Gn 3:17; 5:29; 6:7; Is 54:9 because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward.#Gn 6:5; Ps 51:5; Jr 17:9; Rm 1:21; 3:23; Eph 2:1–3 And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.#Gn 9:11,15

22As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, and day and night

will not cease.”#Jr 33:20,25

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