The Steadfast Love of the Lord
1 hShout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
iPraise befits the upright.
2 Give thanks to the Lord with the jlyre;
make melody to him with jthe harp of kten strings!
3 Sing to him la new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
4 For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in mfaithfulness.
5 He nloves righteousness and justice;
othe earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6 By pthe word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by qthe breath of his mouth all rtheir host.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea as sa heap;
he tputs the deeps in storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9 For uhe spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
10 The Lord vbrings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 wThe counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
12 xBlessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has ychosen as his heritage!
13 The Lord zlooks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14 from awhere he sits enthroned he blooks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16 cThe king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 dThe war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18 Behold, ethe eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
fon those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may gdeliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in hfamine.
20 Our soul iwaits for the Lord;
he is our jhelp and kour shield.
21 For our heart is lglad in him,
because we mtrust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
The Flood Subsides
1 But God dremembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And eGod made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 fThe fountains of the deep and fthe windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end gof 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of hArarat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.
13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, iyou and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and jbe fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.
God’s Covenant with Noah
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled kthe pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again lcurse1 the ground because of man, for mthe intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. nNeither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 oWhile the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, pday and night, shall not cease.”
