Genesis 8

God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, and the rain from heaven was restrained. The waters receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of 150 days the waters had diminished. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to diminish until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared. At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. It flew back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth. He also sent out a dove to see whether the waters had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot, so it returned to him in the ark, because water covered the surface of the whole earth. Noah reached out his hand, took it, and brought it in to himself in the ark. He waited another seven days and again sent the dove out of the ark. The dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. He waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him again. In the six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dry. On the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry. Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living creature that is with you, of all flesh: birds, livestock, and every creature that moves along the ground. Let them swarm over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. Every animal, every creature that moves along the ground, and every bird—everything that moves on the earth—went out of the ark according to their families. Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the pleasing 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 ever again strike down every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.”

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