³They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks^m and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone,ⁿ and tar^o for mortar. ⁴Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,^p so that we may make a name^q for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered^r over the face of the whole earth.”^s

⁵But the Lord came down^t to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language^u they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let us^v go down^w and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”^x

⁸So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth,^y and they stopped building the city. ⁹That is why it was called Babel^c^z—because there the Lord confused the language^a of the whole world.^b From there the Lord scattered^c them over the face of the whole earth.

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Footnotes

aOr from the east; or in the east
bThat is, Babylonia
cThat is, Babylon; Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused.

Cross references

kver 6
lSee Ge 10:10
m Ex 1:14; 5:7; Jer 43:9
n Isa 9:10; Am 5:11
o Ge 14:10
p Dt 1:28; 6:10; 9:1; Job 20:6; Jer 51:53
q Ge 6:4
r Dt 30:3; 1 Ki 22:17; Est 3:8; Ps 44:11; Jer 31:10; 40:15; Eze 6:8; Joel 3:2
sSee Ge 9:19; Dt 4:27
tver 7; Ge 18:21; Ex 3:8; 19:11, 18, 20; Ps 18:9; 144:5
uSee ver 1
vSee Ge 1:26
wSee ver 5
x Ge 42:23; Dt 28:49; Isa 28:11; 33:19; Jer 5:15; 1 Co 14:2, 11
ySee Ge 9:19; Dt 32:8; See Lk 1:51
zSee Ge 10:10
a Ps 55:9
b Ac 2:5–11
c Isa 2:10, 21; 13:14; 24:1