9 But the dove could find no place to perch, and it returned to him in the ark, for there was water over all the earth. Putting out his hand, he caught the dove and drew it back to him inside the ark.
10 He waited yet seven days more and again released the dove from the ark.
11 In the evening the dove came back to him, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! So Noah knew that the waters had diminished on the earth.
12 He waited yet another seven days and then released the dove; but this time it did not come back.
13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water began to dry up on the earth. Noah then removed the covering of the ark and saw that the surface of the ground had dried.
14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 Then God said to Noah: