Chapter 8

The New Creation.^{[a] 1} God remembered Noah and all the wild and farm animals that were with him in the ark. God made a wind blow upon the earth, and the waters began to recede. ² The springs of the abyss and the windows of the heavens were closed, and the rains from the heavens ceased. ³ The waters slowly receded from the earth. At the end of one hundred and fifty days they had greatly diminished. ⁴ In the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.^{[b] 5} The waters continued to recede until the tenth month. In the tenth month, the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains came into view.

⁶ After forty days had gone by, Noah opened the window that he had made in the ark ⁷ and released a raven to see if the waters had completely dried up. It flew back and forth until the waters upon the earth dried up. ⁸ Noah then released a dove, to see if the waters had drained from the surface of the earth, ⁹ but the dove, not finding any place to land, returned to the ark (for the waters still covered the surface of the earth). He reached out and caught the dove and brought it back into the ark.

¹⁰ After waiting another seven days, he once again released the dove from the ark. ¹¹ It returned to him toward the evening. In its beak it had a sprig from an olive tree. Noah understood that the waters had receded from the earth. ¹² He waited another seven days and then released the dove. It did not return to him.

¹³ In the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters dried up upon the earth. Noah removed the covering from the ark and, behold, the surface of the earth was dry. ¹⁴ In the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, the entire surface of the earth was dry.

¹⁵ God commanded Noah, ¹⁶ “Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. ¹⁷ Take all the animals of every species with you, birds, cattle, all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, take them all with you. Let them spread out upon the earth. May they be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.”

¹⁸ Noah left the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives.

¹⁹ All the living creatures and all the wild animals, all the birds and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, each according to its kind, all left the ark.

²⁰ Noah built an altar to the Lord, took every kind of clean animal and some of every kind of clean bird, and he offered them as burnt offerings upon the altar.

²¹ The Lord smelled the pleasant odor and said to himself, “I will never again curse the land because of humankind, for the instinct of every human heart is evil from its youth. I will never again destroy every living creature.