Genesis 11

1The whole earth had one language and one speech.

2As they journeyed eastward, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3They said to each other, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” Brick was their stone, and bitumen their mortar.

4They said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the children of man built.

6Yahweh said, "Look, they are one people, and all of them share one language—this is what they begin to do. Now nothing they devise to do will be restrained from them."

7Come, let's go down and mix up their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech.

8Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

9Therefore it was named Babel, because there Yahweh confounded the speech of all the earth. From there Yahweh dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

10These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old and fathered Arphaxad two years after the flood.

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

12Arphaxad lived thirty-five years and fathered Shelah.

13Arphaxad lived four hundred and three years after he fathered Shelah, and fathered sons and daughters.

14Shelah lived thirty years and fathered Eber.

15Shelah lived four hundred and three years after he fathered Eber, and fathered sons and daughters.

16Eber lived thirty-four years and fathered Peleg.

17Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after fathering Peleg, and fathered sons and daughters.

18Peleg lived thirty years and fathered Reu.

19Peleg lived two hundred nine years after he fathered Reu, and fathered sons and daughters.

20Reu lived thirty-two years and fathered Serug.

21Reu lived two hundred seven years after he fathered Serug, and fathered sons and daughters.

22Serug lived thirty years and fathered Nahor.

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

24Nahor lived twenty-nine years and fathered Terah.

25Nahor lived one hundred nineteen years after he fathered Terah, and fathered sons and daughters.

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

27These are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot.

28Haran died before his father Terah in the land where he was born, in Ur among the Chaldeans.

29Abram and Nahor took wives; Abram's wife was named Sarai, and Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.

30Sarai was barren and had no child.

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

32Terah's days were two hundred five years, and he died in Haran.