1The whole land had one language and one set of words.2As they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there.3And they said man to his fellow, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And the brick served them as stone, and the bitumen served them as mortar.4And they said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth."5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of Adam built.6And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people with one language for all of them, and this is what they have begun to do. Now nothing they plan to do will be withheld from them."7Come, let us go down and confuse there their language, so that they will not understand one another's language.8And the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased to build the city.9Therefore he called its name Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.