Genesis 11:1-9

Easy-to-Read Version

The Tower of Babel

11 There was a time when the whole world spoke one language. Everyone used the same words. ² Then people began to move from the East. They found a plain in the land of Babylonia and stayed there to live. ³ Then they said to each other, “Let’s make some bricks of clay and bake them in the fire.” Then they used these bricks as stones, and they used tar as mortar.

⁴ Then the people said, “Let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that will reach to the sky. Then we will be famous. This will keep us together so that we will not be scattered all over the earth.”

⁵ Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower. ⁶ The Lord said, “These people all speak the same language. And I see that they are joined together to do this work. This is only the beginning of what they can do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want. ⁷ Let’s go down and confuse their language. Then they will not understand each other.”

⁸ So people stopped building the city, and the Lord scattered them all over the earth. ⁹ That is the place where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. That is why it is called Babel.^[a] And it was from there that the Lord caused the people to spread out to all the other places on earth.