Genesis 11:1-9

International Standard Version

The Tower in Babylon

11 There was a time when the entire earth spoke a common language with an identical vocabulary. ² As people^[a] migrated westward,^[b] they came across a plain in the region of Shinar^[c] and settled there. ³ They told each other, “Come on! Let’s burn bricks thoroughly.” They used bricks for stone and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come on! Let’s build ourselves a city and a tower, with its summit in the heavens, and let’s make a name for ourselves^[d] so we won’t be scattered over the surface of the whole earth.”

⁵ However, the Lord descended to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “Look! They are one people with the same language for all of them, and this is only the beginning of what they will do.^[e] Nothing that they have a mind to do will be impossible for them! ⁷ Come on! Let’s go down there and confuse their language, so that they won’t understand each other’s speech.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the surface of the whole earth, so that they had to stop building the city. ⁹ Therefore it was called Babylon,^[f] because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the surface of the entire earth.