The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1-9

    Many people were born after Noah and his wife and their family left the ark. In those days all people spoke the same language.

     As families grew larger, they moved into new lands. They found a valley in the east and called it the plain of Shinar. They learned to make bricks out of the clay in that valley and to bake them so that they were strong. Instead of making stone houses, as they always had before, they made houses out of bricks now.

     They thought about the strong bricks they had learned to a make, and they decided to build a great city with a tall tower.

     "The top of our tower will be clear to the sky," they said proudly. "All people on earth will see it and know who we are. We will be famous all over the world."

     God looked at the city and the tower that the people were building to reach the sky.

     "They think they can do everything," said God. "They all speak the same language and understand each other. When they get together and make plans, nothing will be impossible for them."

     So God sent different languages to these people. They could not understand each other, and they had to stop building the city and the tower, because they could not plan together.

     After that, the people who lived near the unfinished tower called it Babel. This word meant "confusion," or "mixed up." People called the tower by that name because God mixed up the language of all the people on earth. Then God scattered the people and sent them to start new countries.