Genesis 8
8
Chapter 8
The deep water goes away
1Then God thought of Noah, and all the wild animals and the farm animals that were with him in the ship. He caused a wind to blow over the earth. As a result, the water began to go down. 2Streams of water stopped coming up from below the earth. Rain stopped coming down from the sky. 3The deep water continued to go down for 150 days. 4On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ship stopped on the ground. It was sitting on the top of Ararat mountains. 5The water continued to go down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the water.
6After 40 more days, Noah opened a window in the ship. 7He sent a raven to fly away. The raven flew away from the ship and then it returned. It continued to do this until the earth was dry.
8Then Noah sent out a dove. He wanted to see if the water had gone away from the top of the ground. 9But the dove could not find anywhere to stand. Water still covered all the ground. So it returned to Noah in the ship. Noah put out his hand and took the dove back into the ship. 10He waited for seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ship again. 11The dove returned to Noah in the evening. It carried a fresh leaf from an olive tree in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the water had gone down. 12He waited for seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not return to Noah. #8:12 A raven is a big black bird. A dove is a white or grey bird. Olives are small round fruits that grow on an olive tree.
13Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the first month, the water that had covered the earth was now gone. The ground had become dry. Noah made a hole in the roof of the ship and he looked around. He saw that the top of the ground was dry. 14By the 27th day of the second month, the earth had become completely dry.
15God said to Noah, 16‘Come out of the ship. Bring your wife, your sons and their wives with you. 17Bring every different kind of living animal out of the ship. Bring out the birds, the animals, and the living things that move across the ground. Now they may give birth to young ones again. They can grow in number all over the earth.’
18Noah went out of the ship, together with his wife, his sons and their wives. 19All the living animals also went out of the ship. The birds and the living things that move across the ground all went out. Every different kind of animal came out of the ship, each of them in its own group.
God makes a promise to Noah
20Then Noah built an altar to make sacrifices to the Lord. He took one from each kind of clean animal and clean bird. He offered them to the Lord as sacrifices which he burned on the altar. #8:20 When Noah left the ship, he worshipped God. He built an altar to do this. He offered a sacrifice to God on the altar. God had kept them safe and Noah wanted to thank God. He did this before he did anything else.
21The Lord smelled the sacrifice and it made him happy. The Lord said to himself, ‘I will never curse the ground again because of the bad things that people do. From the time that they are children, they want to do bad things. But I will never again destroy everything that breathes, as I have done this time.
22As long as the earth continues to be here,
the time for people to plant seeds will come each year.
The time for harvest will come each year.
Times of cold and heat will always come.
Summer and winter will always come.
Day and night will never stop.’ #8:22 As long as the earth is here, the days and the seasons will continue to happen. God has promised this. He made the universe and he continues to cause it to work properly.
MissionAssist 2018
Genesis 8
8
1And God#GodHebrew: Elohim remembered Noah, and all the animals, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God#GodHebrew: Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, and the pour of rain from heaven was stopped. 3And the waters retired from the earth, continually retiring; and in the course of a hundred and fifty days the waters abated.
4And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5And the waters abated continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6And it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7And he sent out the raven, which went forth going to and fro, until the waters were dried from the earth. 8And he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had become low on the ground. 9But the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, and returned to him into the ark; for the waters were on the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ark. 10And he waited yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11And the dove came to him at eventide; and behold, in her beak was an olive-leaf plucked off; and Noah knew that the waters had become low on the earth. 12And he waited yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; but she returned no more to him.
13And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried. 14And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15And God#GodHebrew: Elohim spoke to Noah, saying, 16Go out of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. 17Bring forth with thee every animal which is with thee, of all flesh, fowl as well as cattle, and all the creeping things which creep on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and may be fruitful and multiply on the earth. 18And Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. 19All the animals, all the creeping things, and all the fowl — everything that moves on the earth, after their kinds, went out of the ark.
20And Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar. 21And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done. 22Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.
First published in 1890. This edition is maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.