Genesis 11:1-13 ▼

1 And the whole earth is of one language, and of the same words,

2 and it comes to pass, in their journeying from the east, that they find a valley in the land of Shinar and dwell there;

3 and they each say to his neighbor, “Give help, let us make bricks, and burn [them] thoroughly”: and the brick is to them for stone, and the bitumen has been to them for mortar.

4 And they say, “Give help, let us build for ourselves a city and tower with its head in the heavens, and make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth.”

5 And YHWH comes down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men have built;

6 and YHWH says, “Behold, the people [is] one, and one language [is] to them all, and this it has dreamed of doing; and now, nothing is restrained from them of that which they have purposed to do.

7 Give help, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that a man will not understand the language of his companion.”

8 And YHWH scatters them from there over the face of all the earth, and they cease to build the city;

9 therefore [one] has called its name Babel, for there YHWH has confused the language of all the earth, and from there YHWH has scattered them over the face of all the earth.

10 These [are] the generations of Shem: Shem [is] a son of one hundred years, and begets Arphaxad two years after the flood.

11 And Shem lives after his begetting Arphaxad five hundred years, and begets sons and daughters.

12 And Arphaxad has lived thirty-five years [[or one hundred and thirty-five years]], and begets Salah.

13 And Arphaxad lives after his begetting Salah four hundred and three years [[or four hundred and thirty years]], and begets sons and daughters.