The Tower That Touched the Clouds

After the flood, Noah’s family grew and grew, until people spread out across the land again. In those days, the whole earth spoke one language. Everyone understood everyone. As people moved from the east, they found a wide plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them hard in the fire.” And then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower so tall its top will reach to heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the whole earth.” So they built, and built, and built — higher and higher, a tower reaching for the clouds.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. The Lord said, “Look — they are one people with one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. Come, let us go down and mix up their language, so that they cannot understand each other’s words.” And that is just what happened. All at once, the builders could not understand each other! One asked for a brick and got a basket. One called out orders and heard only strange sounds back. The building stopped.

So the Lord scattered the people from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Confusion — because there the Lord mixed up the languages of all the earth. And that is how all the different languages of the world began, and how people came to live in every land under the sky.