The Tower of Babylon

11 The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. ² As people migrated from the east,^[a] they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.^{(A) 3} They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.’ (They used brick for stone and bitumen^(B) for mortar.) ⁴ And they said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky.^(C) Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.’

⁵ Then the Lord came down^(D) to look over the city and the tower that the humans^[b] were building. ⁶ The Lord said, ‘If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ ⁸ So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth,^(E) and they stopped building the city. ⁹ Therefore it is called Babylon,^[c][d](F) for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth.

From Shem to Abram

¹⁰ These are the family records^(G) of Shem. Shem lived for 100 years and fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. ¹¹ After he fathered Arpachshad, Shem lived for 500 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹² Arpachshad lived for 35 years^[e] and fathered Shelah. ¹³ After he fathered Shelah, Arpachshad lived for 403 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁴ Shelah lived for 30 years and fathered Eber. ¹⁵ After he fathered Eber, Shelah lived for 403 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁶ Eber lived for 34 years and fathered Peleg. ¹⁷ After he fathered Peleg, Eber lived for 430 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁸ Peleg lived for 30 years and fathered Reu. ¹⁹ After he fathered Reu, Peleg lived for 209 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁰ Reu lived for 32 years and fathered Serug. ²¹ After he fathered Serug, Reu lived for 207 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²² Serug lived for 30 years and fathered Nahor. ²³ After he fathered Nahor, Serug lived for 200 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁴ Nahor lived for 29 years and fathered Terah.^{(H) 25} After he fathered Terah, Nahor lived for 119 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁶ Terah lived for 70 years and fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷ These are the family records of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. ²⁸ Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans, during his father Terah’s lifetime. ²⁹ Abram and Nahor took wives: Abram’s wife was named Sarai,^(I) and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah.^(J) She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ³⁰ Sarai was unable to conceive;^(K) she did not have a child.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans^(L) to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. ³² Terah lived for 205 years and died in Haran.