6 After forty days Noah opened the window he constructed in the ark.
7 He sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the water dried up from the earth.
8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
9 The dove, however, could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth. It returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and held 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.