8. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
9. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
10. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.
11. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
12. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
13. By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.