The Tower of Babylon

11 At first, the people of the whole world had only one language and used the same words. ² As they wandered about in the East, they came to a plain in Babylonia and settled there. ³ They said to one another, “Come on! Let's make bricks and bake them hard.” So they had bricks to build with and tar to hold them together. ⁴ They said, “Now let's build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth.”

⁵ Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which they had built, ⁶ and he said, “Now then, these are all one people and they speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want! ⁷ Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand each other.” ⁸ So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ The city was called Babylon,^[a] because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth.

12 Your immortal spirit is in every one of them, ² and so you gently correct those who sin against you. You remind them of what they are doing, and warn them about it, so that they may abandon their evil ways and put their trust in you, Lord.

The Sins of the Canaanites

^3-4 (A)You hated the people who lived in your holy land long ago, because they did horrible things: they practiced magic and conducted unholy worship;