Genesis 8

1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 

3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 

4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

6 After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark 

7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.

8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.

 9 But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.

 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 

11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 

12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 

14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

15 Then God said to Noah, 

16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 

17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”

18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.

19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 

21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

22 “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 8:21 Or humans, for

Observation Questions

Did God remember Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark? (verse 1)

What did God send over the earth? (verse 1)

Had the rain stopped falling from the sky? (verse 2)

After a hundred and fifty days, had the water gone down? (verse 3)

When did the ark come to rest on the mountains of Ararat? (verse 4)

When did the tops of the mountains become visible? (verse 5)

When did Noah open a window he had made in the ark? (verse 6)

How did Noah look for dry ground? (verse 7-12)

What did the raven do? (verse 7)

What did the doves do? (verse 8-12)

When did Noah remove the covering from the ark? (verse 13)

When was the earth completely dry? (verse 14)

When did Noah come out of the ark? (verse 4-18)

What is the reason that God gives for bringing the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground out of the ark? (verse 17)

Did the animals come out of the ark in an orderly way? (verse 19)

What did Noah build in Genesis 8? (verse 20)

What did Noah sacrifice? (verse 20)

When did the Lord say in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done."? (verse 20-21)

What does God say will be as long as the earth endures? (verse 22)