Noah's Descendants

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were ^(A)Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These three were the sons of Noah, and ^(B)from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.^[a]

²⁰ Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.^{[b] 21} He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. ²² And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backwards, and they did not see their father's nakedness. ²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine ^(C)and knew what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,

²⁶ He also said,

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in ^(A)the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, ^(B)and bitumen for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower ^(C)with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” ⁵ And ^(D)the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ⁶ And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, ^(E)let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” ⁸ So ^(F)the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ⁹ Therefore its name was called ^(G)Babel, because there the Lord confused^[a] the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.