Babel

1The whole earth had one language and the same words.

2And as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3And each man said to his neighbor, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And the brick served them for stone, and the bitumen served them for mortar.

4And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5Then Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built.

6And Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have begun to do. And now nothing that they plan to do will be withheld from them."

7Come, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that one man will not understand the language of his neighbor.

8So Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth, and from there Yahweh scattered them over the face of all the earth.