Genesis 11:1-9

GOD’S WORD Translation

The Tower of Babel

11 The whole world had one language with a common vocabulary. ² As people moved toward the east,^[a] they found a plain in Shinar [Babylonia] and settled there.

³ They said to one another, “Let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used bricks as stones and tar ^[b] as mortar.

⁴ Then they said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t become scattered all over the face of the earth.”

⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the descendants of Adam were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “They are one people with one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do! Now nothing they plan to do will be too difficult for them. ⁷ Let us go down there and mix up their language so that they won’t understand each other.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them all over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ This is why it was named Babel, because there the Lord turned the language of the whole earth into babble. From that place the Lord scattered them all over the face of the earth.