The whole world had the same language and the same words.

When they were migrating from the east, they came to a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

They said to one another, “Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire.” They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.”

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built.

Then the Lord said: If now, while they are one people and all have the same language, they have started to do this, nothing they presume to do will be out of their reach.

Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that no one will understand the speech of another.

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the speech of all the world. From there the Lord scattered them over all the earth.