11. It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down.
12. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.
13. When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked round, and saw that the ground was getting dry.
14. By the 27th day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15. God said to Noah,
16. “Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives.
17. Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.”
18. So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives.
19. All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.
20. Noah built an altar to the Lord; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burnt them whole as a sacrifice on the altar.