1-3 Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.

4-6 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view. After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.

7-9 He sent out a raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn’t even find a place to perch—water still covered the Earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.

10-11 He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.

12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn’t come back.

13-14 In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.

15-17 God spoke to Noah: “Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives. And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that swarming extravagance of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth.”

18-19 Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the Earth—left the ship family by family.

20-21 Noah built an altar to God. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt offerings on the altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, “I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I’ll never again kill off everything living as I’ve just done.

22 For as long as Earth lasts,
    planting and harvest, cold and heat,
Summer and winter, day and night
    will never stop.”

But God remembered(A) Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth,(B) and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens(C) had been closed, and the rain(D) had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days(E) the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month(F) the ark came to rest on the mountains(G) of Ararat.(H) The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

After forty days(I) Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven,(J) and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.(K) Then he sent out a dove(L) to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.(M) 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year,(N) the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month(O) the earth was completely dry.

15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.(P) 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”(Q)

18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.(R) 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord(S) and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean(T) birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings(U) on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma(V) and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground(W) because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.(X) And never again will I destroy(Y) all living creatures,(Z) as I have done.

22 “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,(AA)
cold and heat,
summer and winter,(AB)
day and night
will never cease.”(AC)

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 8:21 Or humans, for