Genesis 11:1–9

The Tower of Babylon

11At one time the whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. ⁿ²As people ^omigrated from the east, ^pthey found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. ^q3They said to each other, “Come, let us make oven-fired bricks.” They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar. ^r4And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. ^sLet us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵Then the Lord came down ^tto look over the city and the tower that the men were building. ⁶The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let Us go down there and confuse ^utheir language ^vso that they will not understand one another’s speech.” ^w8So from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth, ^xand they stopped building the city. ⁹Therefore its name is called Babylon, ^yzfor there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.