8God had not forgotten Noah and all the animals with him in the boat; he caused a wind to blow, and the water started going down.H430H2142H5146H2416H929H8392H430H5674H7307H5674H5921H776H4325H79182The outlets of the water beneath the earth and the floodgates of the sky were closed. The rain stopped,H4599H8415H699H8064H5534H1653H8064H36073and the water gradually went down for 150 days.H4325H7725H776H1980H7725H7097H3967H2572H3117H4325H26374On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the boat came to rest on a mountain in the Ararat range.H8392H5117H7637H2320H6240H7651H3117H2320H2022H7805The water kept going down, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared.H4325H2637H1980H5704H6224H2320H6224H259H2320H7218H2022H72006After forty days Noah opened a windowH7093H705H3117H5146H6605H2474H8392H62137and sent out a raven. It did not come back, but kept flying around until the water was completely gone.H7971H6158H3318H3318H7725H4325H3001H7768Meanwhile, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down,H7971H3123H7200H4325H7043H6440H1279but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to light. It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in.H3123H4672H4494H3709H7272H7725H8392H4325H6440H776H7971H3027H3947H935H839210He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again.H2342H312H7651H3117H3254H7971H3123H839211It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down.H3123H935H6256H6153H6310H2132H5929H2965H5146H3045H4325H7043H77612Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.H3176H312H7651H3117H7971H3123H7725H3254H575013When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked around, and saw that the ground was getting dry.H8337H3967H8141H7223H259H2320H4325H2717H776H5146H5493H4372H8392H7200H6440H127H271714By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.H8145H2320H7651H6242H3117H2320H776H300115God said to Noah,H430H1696H5146H55916"Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives.H3318H8392H802H1121H1121H80217Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth."H3318H2416H1320H5775H929H7431H7430H776H8317H776H6509H7235H77618So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives.H5146H3318H1121H802H1121H80219All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.H2416H7431H5775H3605H7430H776H4940H3318H8392
Noah Offers a Sacrifice
20Noah built an altar to the LORD; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burned them whole as a sacrifice on the altar.H5146H1129H4196H3068H3947H2889H929H2889H5775H5927H5930H419621The odor of the sacrifice pleased the LORD, and he said to himself, "Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time.H3068H7306H5207H7381H3068H559H413H3820H3254H7043H127H120H5668H3336H120H3820H7451H5271H3254H5221H2416H621322As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night."H776H3117H2233H7105H7120H2527H7019H2779H3117H3915H7673