Genesis 11:1-9 (English-NIV)

1

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

2

As men moved eastward, ^[1] they found a plain in Shinar ^[2] and settled there.

3

They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

4

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.

6

The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

8

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9

That is why it was called Babel ^[3]--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

1 Or from the east; or in the east
2 That is, Babylonia
3 That is, Babylon; Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused.

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