Genesis 8
8
1Then God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God caused a wind to pass over the land and the water subsided.
2Also the sources of the deep and the windows of the skies were closed up, and the rain from the sky was held back.
3The waters kept receding gradually from upon the land and the waters decreased by the end of 150 days.
4The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5The waters went on decreasing until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
6It was at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made.
7Then he sent out a raven and it kept going back and forth until the waters were drying up from the land.
8Then he sent out a dove to see whether the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.
9But the dove did not find a resting place for the sole of her foot. She returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole land. He stretched out his hand and he took her, and brought her to him into the ark.
10So he waited yet another seven days and again he sent the dove out from the ark.
11The dove came to him at evening, and surprisingly—a freshly plucked olive leaf was in its mouth. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the land.
12After he waited seven more days, he sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again.
13It was in his six-hundred-and first year—in the first month, on the first day of the month—that the waters had dried up from the land. Then Noah removed the cover of the ark and he looked, and behold, the surface of the ground had dried up.
14By the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the land was dry.
Noah’s Soothing Sacrifice
15Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
16“Come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
17Every animal that is with you of all flesh, including the flying creatures, livestock and every crawling creature that crawls on the land, bring out with you, and let them swarm in the land and be fruitful and multiply upon the land.”
18So Noah came out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives.
19Every animal—every crawling creature, every flying creature, everything that crawls upon the land—came out from the ark in their families.
20Then Noah built an altar to Adonai and he took of every clean domestic animal and of every clean flying creature and he offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21When Adonai smelled the soothing aroma, Adonai said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, even though the inclination of the heart of humankind is evil from youth. Nor will I ever again smite all living creatures, as I have done.
22While all the days of the land remain, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.”
Copyright © 2014 - Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society
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