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
The Flood Recedes
1#Ge 19:29; Ex 2:24God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the water receded. 2#Ge 7:11Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed, and the rain from the heavens was restrained. 3#Ge 7:24The water receded steadily from the earth, and after the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4#2Ki 19:37; Isa 37:38The ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5The water continually decreased until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.
6#Ge 6:16Then at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, 7and he sent forth a raven, which went to and fro until the waters were dried up on the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the waters were on the surface of all the earth. Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her into the ark to himself. 10He waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark. 11The dove came to him in the evening, and in her mouth there was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 12He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again, but it did not return to him again.
13So in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw the surface of the ground was dry. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16#Ge 7:13“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17#Ge 1:22; 9:1Bring 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, so that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
18So Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went out. 19Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.
20#Ge 12:7–8; 22:9Then 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. 21#Ge 3:17; 6:5The Lord smelled a soothing aroma; and the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
22#Jer 5:24 While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
and day and night
will not cease.”
Military Bible Association