Page:The Holy Bible Vol 1 (Thomson).djvu/22

Ch. IX. into the ark, for the water was on the whole face of the earth. Therefore he stretched out his hand and brought it to him into the ark. And having waited yet other seven days, he again sent forth the dove out of the ark, and towards evening the dove returned to him and it had an olive leaf, a dry leaf in its bill. So Noe knew that the water was abated from the earth. And having waited yet other seven days he again sent out the dove, and it returned to him no more.

And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year of Noe's life, in the first month and the first day of the month, the water was gone from the earth; and Noe removed the covering of the ark which he had made, and he saw that the water was gone from the face of the earth. And in the second month and twenty seventh day of the month, when the ground was dry, the Lord God spoke to Noe saying,  "Go forth out of the ark, thou and thy wife and thy sons and thy sons' wives with thee, and all the beasts which are with thee, even all flesh both of fowls and cattle.  Take out also with thee every moving reptile on the earth, and be ye fruitful and multiplied on the earth." So Noe and his wife and his sons and his sons' wives with him went out. And all the beasts and all the cattle and every fowl and every moving reptile on the earth according to their kind, went forth out of the ark. And Noe built an altar to the Lord, and took of all the cattle which are clean and of all the fowls which are clean, and offered them up upon the altar for a whole homage offering. And the Lord God smelled a sweet savour, and the Lord God having come to a determination, said, "I will no more curse the ground on account of the works of men. Though the imagination of man is studiously bent upon evils from his youth, I will not on that account again smite all living flesh, as I have done. While the earth continueth, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, with a succession of day and night shall not cease."

Then God blessed Noe and his sons and said to them, "Increase and multiply and replenish the earth and have dominion over it; and let the fear and the dread of you be upon all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds of the air, and on all that move on the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea.