Turning off the water
1God remembered the boat floating in the water and all the life inside: Noah and all the animals wild and mild. God sent a wind, and the water level began to drop. 2Underground geysers stopped forcing up their fountains of water. Rainwater stopped falling from the sky. 3Gradually, floodwater started to drop 150 days after the flood started. 4Noah’s boat came to a grinding halt somewhere in the Ararat mountain range, [1] five months after the flood started. 5Floodwater continued to drop until Noah, two and a half months later, could see other mountain peaks.6After 40 more days, Noah opened a window he had built into the boat. 7He released a raven to fly above the flood until the ground dried up. 8He also released a dove to see if it would find a dry place to nest. 9It did not. The dove flew back to the boat because the floodwater still covered the ground. Noah brought the dove back into the boat. 10Noah waited another seven days and then released the dove again. 11The dove came back to the boat that evening, but this time it carried a fresh olive leaf in its beak. That clued Noah the water was starting to recede. 12Noah waited another seven days before releasing the dove again. This time the dove did not return.
13Noah had a birthday during the flood. He turned 601. On that day, 10 and a half months after the flood had started, the ground was beginning to dry. So Noah took the covering off the top of the boat, looked outside, and saw the ground was dry. 14Two months later, the ground was dry enough to walk on.
15God told Noah, 16“Leave the boat now. Take your family with you. 17Release every living thing you brought with you—birds, land animals, and every bug and other life-form that creeps and crawls along the dirt. Release them so they will reproduce and fill the world again with critters of every kind.”
18Noah left the boat, taking with him his wife, his three sons, and their wives. 19Two by two, all the animals came with him: birds and land critters large and small.
