11. This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.
12. He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back.
13. Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.
14. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!
15. Then God said to Noah,
16. “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives.