The Tower of Babylon

11 At one time the whole earth had the same language and vocabulary.[a] As people[b] migrated from the east,[c] they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.(A) They said to each other, “Come, let us make oven-fired bricks.” They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.(B) And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky.(C) Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Then the Lord came down(D) to look over the city and the tower that the men were building. 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. Come, let Us go down there and confuse[d] their language[e] so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”[f] So from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth,(E) and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name is called Babylon,[g](F) for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 11:1 Lit one lip and the same words
  2. Genesis 11:2 Lit they
  3. Genesis 11:2 Or migrated eastward
  4. Genesis 11:7 Or confound
  5. Genesis 11:7 Lit lip
  6. Genesis 11:7 Lit understand each man the lip of his companion
  7. Genesis 11:9 In Hb, the name Babylon sounds like the word “confuse.”

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