Chapter 8

¹God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided. ²The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. ³The waters receded from the earth continually. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters decreased. ⁴The ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. ⁵The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶It happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, ⁷and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, ⁹but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him into the ark; for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ark. ¹⁰He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. ¹¹The dove came back to him at evening, and, behold, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. ¹²He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.

¹³It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried. ¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

¹⁵God spoke to Noah, saying, ¹⁶“Go forth from the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”

¹⁸Noah went forth, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. ¹⁹Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark.

²⁰Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹Yahweh smelled the sweet savor. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again strike everything living, as I have done. ²²While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”