⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,^(A) knowing good and evil.”

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole world had one language^(A) and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward,^[a] they found a plain in Shinar^[b](B) and settled there.

³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks^(C) and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone,^(D) and tar^(E) for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,^(F) so that we may make a name^(G) for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered^(H) over the face of the whole earth.”^(I)

⁵ But the Lord came down^(J) to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language^(K) they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us^(L) go down^(M) and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”^(N)

⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth,^(O) and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel^[c](P)—because there the Lord confused the language^(Q) of the whole world.^(R) From there the Lord scattered^(S) them over the face of the whole earth.

²⁰ He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon;^(A) they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply.^(B)

²¹ On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. ²² They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” ²³ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel^(C) of the Lord struck him down,^(D) and he was eaten by worms and died.