Chapter 11

¹ Now the entire land used a single language and the same words.

² As people migrated from the east, they discovered a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

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

⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its summit reaching into the sky; let us make a name for ourselves, otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire land.”

⁵ But The Sovereign, The Self-Existent came down to evaluate the city and the tower that the humans were building.

⁶ And The Sovereign said, “Behold, they are a unified people using a single language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; now nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

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

⁸ So The Sovereign, The Self-Existent scattered them from that site across the face of the entire land, and they stopped building the city.

⁹ Therefore its name was called Babel (Confusion), because there The Sovereign disrupted the language of the entire land; and from that site, The Sovereign, The Self-Existent scattered them across the face of the entire land.

¹⁰ This is the family record of Shem:

Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. 

¹¹ After he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹² When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 

¹³ After he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴ When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 

¹⁵ After he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶ When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 

17 After he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters. 

¹⁸ When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 

¹⁹ After he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰ When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 

²¹ After he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²² When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 

²³ After he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴ When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 

²⁵ After he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶ After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷ This is the family record of Terah:

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 

²⁸ While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

²⁹ Abram and Nahor both married. 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 both Milcah and Iscah.

³⁰ Now Sarai was unable to conceive; she had no children.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai (the wife of his son Abram), and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But when they arrived at Haran, they settled there.

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