Genesis 8

CHAPTER 8

The Water Dries Up

¹Then ^aGod remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and ^bGod caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.

²Also ^athe fountains of the deep and the ¹floodgates of the sky were closed, and ^bthe rain from the sky was restrained;

³and the water receded from the earth, going forth and returning, and at the end ^aof 150 days the water decreased.

⁴In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, ^athe ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.

⁵Now the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

⁶Then it happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the ^awindow of the ark which he had made;

⁷and he sent out a raven, and it went out flying back and forth until the water was dried up ¹from the earth.

⁸Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land;

⁹but the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot, so it returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the ¹surface of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark to himself.

¹⁰Then he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.

¹¹And the dove came to him toward ¹evening, and behold, in its ²beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.

¹²Then he waited yet another seven days and sent out ^athe dove; but it did not return to him again.

¹³Now it happened in the ^asix hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up ¹from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the ²surface of the ground was dried up.

¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

¹⁵Then God spoke to Noah, saying,

¹⁶“Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.

¹⁷“Bring 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, that they may ^aswarm on the earth, and that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

¹⁸So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.

¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out ¹by their families from the ark.

Yahweh’s Covenant with Noah

²⁰Then Noah built ^aan altar to Yahweh and took of every ^bclean animal and of every clean bird and offered ^cburnt offerings on the altar.

²¹And Yahweh ^asmelled the ¹soothing aroma; and Yahweh said ²to Himself, “I will never again ^bcurse the ground because of man, for ^cthe ³intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; ^dand I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

²²“While all the days of the earth remain,

Seedtime and harvest,

And cold and heat,

And ^asummer and winter,

And ^bday and night

Shall not cease.”