1 At first everyone spoke the same language,
2 but after some of them moved from the east and settled in Babylonia,
3-4 they said:Let's build a city with a tower that reaches to the sky! We'll use hard bricks and tar instead of stone and mortar. We'll become famous, and we won't be scattered all over the world.
5 But when the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower,
6 he said:These people are working together because they all speak the same language. This is just the beginning. Soon they will be able to do anything they want.
7 Let's go down and confuse them! We'll make them speak different languages, and they won't be able to understand each other.
8-9 So the people had to stop building the city, because the Lord confused their language and scattered them all over the earth. That's how the city of Babel got its name.