8
About the water drying up
1 God did not forget Noah and the animals and birds in the boat. He sent a wind to dry up the water and make it go down.
2 The water bubbling up from the ground was stopped and the sky was closed and no more rain fell.
3 Then the water went down and down and kept on going down until the five months had passed.
4 It was full moon again now. And the boat landed on a mountain called Ararat.
5 And the water kept on going down and down.
Then two more months passed and it was new moon now. Then the mountain tops appeared from the water that had covered them.
6 After forty days Noah opened a window in the boat.
7 And he sent out a crow from the window. It flew away and kept on circling around and around. It didn't come back but it kept flying around until all the water was gone.
8 While Noah was waiting for the crow, he opened the window again and sent out a dove to see if the water had all gone.
9 He sent the dove out but it wandered around. There was still water everywhere. So it circled around and around and then came back to the boat, because there was nowhere for it to rest. Noah stretched out his hand and took the dove through the window and brought it back inside.
10 Noah waited another seven days. Then he sent out the dove again.
11 And then late in the afternoon it came back to him, bringing a green leaf to the boat. So Noah knew that there was no more water now.
12 He waited another seven days and then he sent the dove out once more. This time it didn't come back to him.
13 After the boat landed five months passed. Then at the new moon the water was all gone. Noah was an old man, he was 601 years old now. He opened the roof of the boat and looked out over the land and saw that the ground was getting dry.
14 After two more months, before the new moon, the land was quite dry.
15 Then God said to Noah,
16 “Go out of the boat now. Go out with your wife and your sons and their wives.
17 Let out all the birds and animals. Take them with you, so that they can increase and live all over the earth.”
18 So Noah and his family went out of the boat.
19 And the animals and birds all came out in groups of their own kind.
About Noah sacrificing animals to Yahweh
20 Noah collected some stones and piled them up to make an altar so that he could sacrifice some animals for Yahweh. Then he took one each of the animals and birds that they could eat and burnt them whole, without cutting them, on the altar. He sacrificed them there and he praised Yahweh.
21 When Yahweh smelled them he was pleased.
He said to himself, “That is the last time. I will never curse the earth again because people have done wrong. I know that even while people are young, they are still bad. Their thoughts are evil. But I will no longer destroy everything that lives in the world. I won't do it again.
22 “This is the way it will be. People will grow food again in this world and gather it. The hot season and the cold season will follow one another until the world is finished. And night and day will always follow each other too.”