Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Genesis 11
¹ At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words.
² As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.
³ They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.)
⁴ Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
⁵ But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.
⁶ “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!
⁷ Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
⁸ In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city.
⁹ That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.
¹⁰ This is the account of Shem’s family. Two years after the great flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
¹¹ After the birth of Arphaxad, Shem lived another 500 years and had other sons and daughters.