The Flood Abates

1And God remembered and thought kindly of Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind blow over the land, and the waters receded. 2Also the fountains of the deep [subterranean waters] and the windows of the heavens were closed, the [pouring] rain from the sky was restrained, 3and the waters receded steadily from the earth. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had diminished. 4On the seventeenth day of the seventh month [five months after the rain began], the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat [in [a]Turkey]. 5The waters continued to decrease until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

6At the end of [another] forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; 7and he sent out a raven, which flew here and there until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the water level had fallen below the surface of the land. 9But the dove found no place on which to rest the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were [still] on the face of the entire earth. So he reached out his hand and took the dove, and brought her into the ark. 10He waited another seven days and again sent the dove out from the ark. 11The dove came back to him in the evening, and there, in her beak, was a fresh olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water level had subsided from the earth. 12Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again.

13Now in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and the surface of the ground was drying. 14On the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was [entirely] dry. 15And God spoke to Noah, saying, 16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you. 17Bring out with you every living thing from all flesh--birds and animals and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth--that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days]. 19Every animal, every crawling thing, every bird--and whatever moves on the land--went out by families (types, groupings) from the ark.

20And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every [ceremonially] clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma [a soothing, satisfying scent] and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intent (strong inclination, desire) of man’s heart is wicked from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.

22“While the earth remains,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Winter and summer,

And day and night

Shall not cease.”