Genesis 11:1-9

Living Bible

11 At that time all mankind spoke a single language. ² As the population grew and spread eastward, a plain was discovered in the land of Babylon and was soon thickly populated. ^3-4 The people who lived there began to talk about building a great city, with a temple-tower reaching to the skies—a proud, eternal monument to themselves.

“This will weld us together,” they said, “and keep us from scattering all over the world.” So they made great piles of hard-burned brick, and collected bitumen to use as mortar.

⁵ But when God came down to see the city and the tower mankind was making, ⁶ he said, “Look! If they are able to accomplish all this when they have just begun to exploit their linguistic and political unity, just think of what they will do later! Nothing will be unattainable for them!^{[a] 7} Come, let us go down and give them different languages, so that they won’t understand each other’s words!”

⁸ So, in that way, God scattered them all over the earth; and that ended the building of the city. ⁹ That is why the city was called Babel (meaning “confusion”), because it was there that Jehovah confused them by giving them many languages, thus widely scattering them across the face of the earth.