[1] But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were
with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the
waters subsided; [2] the fountains of the deep and the windows of the
heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, [3] and the
waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of a hundred and
fifty days the waters had abated; [4] and in the seventh month, on the
seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of
Ar'arat. [5] And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in
the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains
were seen. [6] At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark
which he had made, [7] and sent forth a raven; and it went to and fro until
the waters were dried up from the earth. [8] Then he sent forth a dove from
him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; [9] but
the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the
ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put
forth his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. [10] He
waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
[11] and the dove came back to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth a
freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from
the earth. [12] Then he waited another seven days, and sent forth the dove;
and she did not return to him any more. [13] In the six hundred and first
year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried
from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked,
and behold, the face of the ground was dry. [14] In the second month, on
the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. [15] Then God said
to Noah, [16] "Go forth from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and
your sons' wives with you. [17] Bring forth with you every living thing
that is with you of all flesh--birds and animals and every creeping thing
that creeps on the earth--that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and
be fruitful and multiply upon the earth." [18] So Noah went forth, and his
sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. [19] And every beast, every
creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves upon the earth, went
forth by families out of the ark. [20] Then Noah built an altar to the
LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered
burnt offerings on the altar. [21] And when the LORD smelled the pleasing
odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground
because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
[22] While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer
and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
