Chapter 8 of the Book of Genesis details the aftermath of the great flood and God’s interactions with Noah as the waters recede. Here’s a summary of the key events:

1. God Remembers Noah: The chapter begins with God remembering Noah and all the wild animals and livestock that were with him in the ark. God sends a wind over the earth, and the waters begin to recede.
2. The Water Recedes: The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat as the water levels lower over several months. Noah first sends out a raven, which keeps flying until the waters have dried up. He then sends out a dove to see if the water has receded from the surface of the ground. The dove initially finds no place to set its feet and returns. Noah waits another seven days and sends the dove out again, and this time it returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf, showing that water levels have fallen. After another seven days, he sends the dove out again, and it does not return, indicating that the earth is dry.
3. God Instructs Noah to Leave the Ark: God tells Noah to come out of the ark with his family and to release all the animals so that they can multiply on the earth. Noah complies with God’s instructions, leaving the ark with his family and all the animals.
4. Noah Builds an Altar: After exiting the ark, Noah builds an altar to the Lord and offers burnt offerings from some of the clean animals and birds. God is pleased with the offering and makes a promise in His heart never to curse the ground again because of humans, despite their inclination to evil from childhood. God also vows never to destroy all living creatures as He did with the flood.
5. God’s Promise: The chapter concludes with God establishing a covenant, signifying a new beginning for humanity and the earth after the flood. God’s promise marks a pivotal moment, setting the stage for His ongoing relationship with Noah, his descendants, and all living creatures.

This chapter highlights themes of renewal, divine mercy, and the beginnings of a covenant relationship between God and humanity, underscored by the symbolic act of sacrifice and God’s responsive promise.

¹ God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided. 

² The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained. 

³ The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded. 

⁴ The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains. 

⁵ The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

⁶ At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, 

⁷ and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸ He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, 

⁹ but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship. 

¹⁰ He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. 

¹¹ The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. 

¹² He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.

¹³ In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 

¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

¹⁵ God spoke to Noah, saying, 

¹⁶ “Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 

¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”

¹⁸ Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. 

¹⁹ Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.

²⁰ Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 

²¹ Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done. 

²² While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”