The Tower of Babel

¹ Now the whole world had one language^* and a common form of speech. ² And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

³ And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar.

⁴ “Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower^* that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”

⁵ Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower^* that the sons of men were building. ⁶ And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them. ⁷ Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused^* the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.

Genealogy from Shem to Abram

¹⁰ This is the account of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. ¹¹ And after he had become the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹² When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah. ¹³ And after he had become the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴ When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of Eber. ¹⁵ And after he had become the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶ When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg. ¹⁷ And after he had become the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸ When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu. ¹⁹ And after he had become the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰ When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug. ²¹ And after he had become the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²² When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of Nahor. ²³ And after he had become the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴ When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of Terah. ²⁵ And after he had become the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶ When Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah’s Descendants

²⁷ This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. ²⁸ During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

²⁹ And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ³⁰ But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

³¹ And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there. ³² Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.