Gen 8 | EE | STEP | Then God thought of Noah, and all the animals in the boat. He sent a wind to blow over the whole world. And the waters began to go down.

Genesis 8

The water goes away

1 Then God thought of Noah, and all the animals in the boat. He sent a wind to blow over the whole world. And the waters began to go down. 2 Water stopped coming up from below the earth. And water stopped coming down from heaven. The rain stopped falling from the sky. 3 The waters went down, and at the end of 150 days the water had almost gone. 4 On the 17th day of the 7th month, the boat settled on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The water continued to go down until the 10th month. On the 1st day of the 10th month the tops of the mountains appeared.

6 After 40 more days, Noah opened the window in the boat. 7 He sent out a raven. The raven flew back to the boat. Then it flew away from it again. It did this several times until the earth was dry. 8 Noah also sent out a dove. He sent the dove to see if the water had gone from the top of the ground. 9 But the dove could not find anywhere to stand. This was because still there was water over all of the ground. So it returned to Noah in the boat. Noah put out his hand and took the dove back into the boat. 10 He waited for 7 days. Then he sent the dove out again. 11 The dove returned to him in the evening. It carried a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the waters had gone down. 12 He waited for 7 more days. Then he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not return to Noah. ^{▼▼8:12 A raven is a big black bird. A dove is a white bird. Olives are small round fruits. They grow on an olive tree. An olive leaf is a leaf from this tree.}

13 It was the 1st day of the first month. Noah was now 601 years old. The water that covered the earth was gone. The earth was dry. Noah removed the top of the ark. He saw that the top of the ground was dry. 14 Some time passed. On the 27th day of the 2nd month, the earth was completely dry.

15 God said to Noah, 16 ‘Come out of the boat. Bring your wife, your sons and their wives with you. 17 Bring every different living animal out of the boat. Bring out the birds and the animals. And bring out those animals that move across the ground. Bring them out so that they may have young ones. Then they can grow in number on the earth.’

18 Noah came out of the boat. His wife, and his sons and their wives came too. 19 All the animals came out of the boat. Those that moved across the ground, and the birds came too. Every different animal came out of the boat.

God makes a promise to Noah

20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of the clean animals and birds. And he sacrificed a burnt offering on the altar. ^{▼▼8:20 When Noah leaves the ark, he worships God. He builds an altar to do this. He makes a sacrifice on the altar. He does this before anything else. He thanks God for keeping them safe.}

21 The LORD smelled the sacrifice and was happy with it. The LORD said (in his heart) ‘I will never again curse the ground because of men and women. I will never curse it even when they think of doing wrong. They think of doing wrong from the time that they are children. But still I will never destroy all the living animals again, as I have done.

22 As long as the earth is here, the time for planting will come each year. The time for getting the plants out of the ground will come each year. Cold and heat, and summer and winter will always come. They will never stop. Day and night will never stop.’ ^{▼▼8:22 As long as the earth is here, the seasons will carry on as before. God made the earth like this.}