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Genesis 8

1God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the livestock with him in the ark. God made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2The springs of the deep and heaven's windows were closed, and the rain from heaven was held back. 3The waters steadily receded from the earth. At the end of 150 days the waters had diminished. 4In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5The waters continued to diminish until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the mountaintops appeared.

6At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark he had made 7and sent out the raven. It went out, going to and fro until the waters dried up from the earth. 8He sent out the dove from him to see whether the waters had lessened on the surface of the ground. 9But the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot, and returned to him in the ark, because water covered the surface of all the earth. He reached out his hand, took it, and brought it to him into the ark. 10He waited another seven days and again sent the dove out of the ark. 11The dove came to him at evening, and look, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in its mouth. Noah knew that the waters had lessened upon the earth. 12He waited another seven days and sent out the dove; it did not return to him again.

13In the six-hundred-and-first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters had dried up from the earth. Noah removed the ark's covering and looked, and look, the surface of the ground was dry. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. 15God spoke to Noah, saying, 16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and your sons' wives with you. 17Bring out with you every living thing with you, from all flesh—birds, livestock, and everything crawling on the earth—so that they may swarm on the earth, be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.” 18Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives. 19Every wild animal, every crawling thing, and every bird—everything moving on the earth—went out of the ark by their families.

20Noah built an altar to Yahweh. He took some of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21Yahweh smelled the pleasing aroma, and Yahweh said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, although the shaping of the human heart is evil from youth. Nor will I ever again strike down every living thing as I have done. 22As long as the earth's days endure, sowing and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.”

Translation notes 4

8:1–5 — Remembering; Ararat. God remembers by turning toward Noah in action, without an implication that he had forgotten Noah's existence. Ararat names a mountainous region; the Hebrew does not identify one modern peak. The month numbers are retained without conversion into a modern calendar.

8:6–14 — Raven; dove; drying. The raven goes to and fro; its failure to return permanently is not stated here. The dove's successive flights and the different drying notices are kept distinct. The first day of the first month marks a dry ground surface; the later date marks the dry earth before departure.

8:17–19 — Bring out. The encoded reading tradition gives a different verbal form of “bring out” from the written form at verse 17. Both direct Noah to take the creatures out; the draft follows the reading tradition without a change in English meaning. Families describes their groupings rather than supplying a biological taxonomy.

8:20–22 — Aroma; human heart. The sensory language is retained. The clause about evil can mean “because” rather than “although”; either way the human condition has not simply vanished. The pledge concerns another destruction like this and the continuity of the earth's cycles, without a promise that no individual disaster will occur.