Genesis 8
8
The water goes down
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 one hundred and fifty 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, and he sent out a dove. 9Deep water was still everywhere, and the dove could not find a place to land. So it flew back to the boat. 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 that 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 six hundred and one 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 gone out of 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 God, 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.
© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
Genesis 8
8
1And God remembered Noe, and all the living creatures, and all the cattle which were with him in the ark: and brought a wind upon the earth, and the waters were abated.
2The fountains also of the deep, and the flood gates of heaven were shut up: and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3And the waters returned from off the earth going and coming: and they began to be abated after a hundred and fifty days.
4And the ark rested in the seventh month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia.
5And the waters were going and decreasing until the tenth month: for in the tenth month, the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
6And after that forty days were passed, Noe, opening the window of the ark which he had made, sent forth a raven:
7Which went forth and did not return, till the waters were dried up upon the earth.
8He sent forth also a dove after him, to see if the waters had now ceased upon the face of the earth.
9But she, not finding where her foot might rest, returned to him into the ark: for the waters were upon the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and caught her, and brought her into the ark.
10And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove out of the ark.
11And she came to him in the evening, carrying a bough of an olive tree with green leaves, in her mouth. Noe therefore understood that the waters were ceased upon the earth.
12And he stayed yet other seven days: and he sent forth the dove, which returned not any more unto him.
13Therefore in the six hundreth and first year, the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were lessened upon the earth. And Noe, opening the covering of the ark, looked, and saw that the face of the earth was dried.
14In the second month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth was dried.
15And God spoke to Noe, saying:
16Go out of the ark, thou and thy wife, thy sons, and the wives of thy sons with thee.
17All living things that are with thee of all flesh, as well in fowls as in beasts, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, bring out with thee, and go ye upon the earth: increased and multiply upon it.
18So Noe went out, he and his sons: his wife, and the wives of his sons with him.
19And all living things, and cattle, and creeping things that creep upon the earth, according to their kinds, went out of the ark.
20And Noe built an altar unto the Lord: and taking of all cattle and fowls that were clean, offered holocausts upon the altar.
21And the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said: I will no more curse the earth for the sake of man: for the imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth: therefore I will no more destroy every living soul as I have done.
22All the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day, shall not cease.
An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.