11 Now the whole world had a single language and the same words, 2 and as they migrated from the east, they discovered a plain in the Shin’ar region and settled there. 3 Then they said to each other, “Come on, let’s make bricks and cure them with fire.” So they had bricks instead of stones, and they had tar for mortar.

4 Then they said, “Come on, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a reputation for ourselves, so that we don’t get scattered all over the whole earth.” 5 Then Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the humans were building 6 and he said, “Look, they’re just one people group, and they all speak the same language. This is only the beginning of what they can do together—soon they’ll be capable of doing anything they plan to do. 7 Come on then, let’s go down and confuse their language so that they won’t be able to understand each other’s words.” 8 ⇔So then they stopped building the city and Yahweh caused them to scatter over the whole world. 9 That’s why they named the city ‘Bavel’ (meaning ‘mixed-up’) because it was there that Yahweh mixed up everyone’s language and then scattered them over the whole world.