Yahweh caused people to speak many different languages after they started to build a tower at Babel

11 At first, all the people in [MTY] the world spoke the same language [DOU]. 2 As people moved further east, they arrived at a plain in Babylonia region and began to live there. 3 Then they said to each other, “◄Hey/Come on►, let’s form bricks and bake them to make them hard, for building!” So they used bricks instead of stones, and used tar instead of ◄mortar/a mixture of cement, sand and lime► to hold them together. 4 They said, “Hey, let’s build a city for ourselves! We also ought to build a very high tower that reaches up to the sky! In that way we will become famous! If we do not do this, we will be scattered all over the earth!”

5 So they began to build the city and the tower. Then Yahweh looked down and saw the city and the tower that those puny men were building. 6 Yahweh said, “These people are one group that all speak the same language. If they have begun to do this now, then ◄there is nothing that they will decide to do that will be impossible for them/they will be able to do whatever they decide to do► [LIT]! 7 So, okay/now, we will go down there and cause there to be many different languages, so that they will not be able to understand each other.”

8 So Yahweh did that. As a result, the people stopped building the city, and Yahweh caused them to disperse all over the earth. 9 The city was called Babel which means ‘confusion’, because there Yahweh caused the people to become confused because the people [MTY] spoke different languages that the others could not understand, not just one language. From there Yahweh caused them to disperse all over the earth.