Genesis 11:1-9 ▼

1 NOW the whole earth spoke one language and with one manner of speech.

2 And it came to pass, as men journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sinar; and they settled there.

3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them with fire. And they had bricks for stone, and slime for mortar.

4 Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top may reach to heaven; and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which men were building.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and they have reasoned to do this thing; and now nothing will prevent them from doing that which they have imagined to do.

7 Come, let us go down, and there divide their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there upon the face of all the earth; and they ceased from building the city.

9 Therefore they called the name of it Babel; because it was there that the LORD confounded the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them upon the face of all the earth.