Genesis 11:4-9

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”^{(A) 5} The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.^{(B) 6} And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.^{(C) 7} Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”^{(D) 8} So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.^{(E) 9} Therefore it was called Babel,^[a] because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.^(F)