After five months the rain stopped and the water gradually went down until the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat; some weeks later the mountain tops could be seen; after another few weeks, Noah opened the window of the ark, and sent out a raven which flew far and near, but did not come back to him. Next, he sent out a dove, to see if the water had become low, but she found no resting place, and came back to Noah into the ark. A week went by and Noah sent the dove out again; at evening she came back with an olive leaf in her mouth, showing that the trees were to be seen out of the water; still another week passed and the dove was let loose once more, and this time she did not come back; there was a clean, dry place for her to make her home.
When they had been shut up in the ark very nearly eleven months, the water was all gone, and Noah took the covering off the ark, but still he waited for God to tell him to leave, and to bring out the many creatures that had been shut up so long, so it was ten days more than a year after the rain began to fall, when the door of the ark was opened.
Noah, now in thankfulness for being saved from the death that had come to all the world, built an altar to the Lord and offered on it both beasts and birds of every clean kind, and the Lord, while saying that the thoughts of men’s hearts are evil. from youth, yet said that He would no more curse the ground for man’s sake, and no more strike every living thing as He had done; as long as the earth remains, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night would never cease.