Genesis 11:4-9 ▼

4 They said, “Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the LORD instructed].”

5 Now the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one [unified] people, and they all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do [in rebellion against Me], and now no evil thing they imagine they can do will be impossible for them.

7 Come, let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) go down and there confuse and mix up their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the surface of the entire earth; and they stopped building the city.

9 Therefore the name of the city was Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the entire earth; and from that place the LORD scattered and dispersed them over the surface of all the earth.