Genesis 11

1Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

2As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they had brick for stone and tar for mortar.

4Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, so that we are not scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built.

6Yahweh said, “Look, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. Now nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

8So Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city.

9That is why it was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of the whole earth, and from there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

10This is the account of Shem’s descendants. When Shem was a hundred years old, he fathered Arphaxad, two years after the flood.

11After Shem fathered Arphaxad, he lived five hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

12When Arphaxad had lived thirty-five years, he fathered Shelah.

13After Arphaxad fathered Shelah, he lived 403 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

14When Shelah had lived thirty years, he fathered Eber.

15After Shelah fathered Eber, he lived 403 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

16When Eber had lived thirty-four years, he fathered Peleg.

17After Eber fathered Peleg, he lived 430 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

18When Peleg had lived thirty years, he fathered Reu.

19After Peleg fathered Reu, he lived 209 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

20When Reu had lived thirty-two years, he fathered Serug.

21After Reu fathered Serug, he lived 207 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

22When Serug had lived thirty years, he fathered Nahor.

23After Serug fathered Nahor, he lived two hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

24When Nahor had lived twenty-nine years, he fathered Terah.

25After Nahor fathered Terah, he lived 119 years, and he fathered sons and daughters.

26When Terah had lived seventy years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27This is the account of Terah’s descendants. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot.

28Haran died in the lifetime of his father Terah, in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

29Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

30Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. They came as far as Haran and settled there.

32Terah lived 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.