The Waters Recede
1 God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters receded. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. 3 The waters continued receding from the earth, and after 150 days had passed, the waters had decreased. 4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark rested on Ararat’s mountains.
5 The waters continued receding until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
Scouting for Dry Land
6 At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, 7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters had abated from the ground’s surface, 9 but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and returned to Noah into the ark, for the waters covered the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand and took the dove, and brought her with him into the ship.
10 He waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out of the ark. 11 The dove came back to him at evening, and in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had abated from the earth.
12 He waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, and she did not return to him again.
Disembarking
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s 601st year, the waters had dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering from the ark, looked and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 “Go out from the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring every living thing out with you: all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creature that crawls on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
18 Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creature, and every bird; everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark with their families.
Noah’s Offering and God’s Promise
20 Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took from every clean animal and every clean bird, and offered it as a burnt offering on the altar. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasant aroma and said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though his heart schemes evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
22 While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”