The filthy, stained city is as good as dead; the city filled with oppressors is finished!

Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.

He waited seven more days and then sent out the dove again from the ark.

“He will then make one of the turtledoves or young pigeons, which are within his means,

When the dove returned to him in the evening, there was a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but it did not return to him this time.

“‘If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering from the birds, he must present his offering from the turtledoves or from the young pigeons.

The Lord is like a lion who has left his lair. So their lands will certainly be laid waste by the warfare of the oppressive nation and by the fierce anger of the Lord.”

I will make many stumble. They will fall over one another in their hurry to flee. They will say, ‘Get up! Let’s go back to our own people. Let’s go back to our homelands because the enemy is coming to destroy us.’

Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon. Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. Let all the foreigners return to their own people. Let them hurry back to their own lands to escape destruction by that enemy army.

The dove could not find a resting place for its feet because water still covered the surface of the entire earth, and so it returned to Noah in the ark. He stretched out his hand, took the dove, and brought it back into the ark.