He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove
from the ark. 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. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
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.
By the twenty-seventh day
of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Then God said to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you
and your wife and your sons
and their wives. 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 upon it.“