The Tower of Babel

11 Now^[a] the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as people migrated^[b] from the east they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to each other,^[c] “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.”^[d] And they had brick for stone and they had tar for mortar. ⁴ And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top reaches to the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵ Then^[e] Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that humankind^[f] was building. ⁶ And Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people with one language,^[g] and this is only the beginning of what they will do.^[h] So^[i] now nothing that they intend to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand each other’s language.”^{[j] 8} So Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ Therefore its name was called Babel, for there Yahweh confused the language of the whole earth, and there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth.