Genesis 11

The Tower of Babylon

¹The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. ²As people migrated from the east, ^a they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. ^{b 3}They said to each other, “Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.” (They used brick for stone and asphalt ^c for mortar.) ⁴And they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. ^d Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.”

⁵Then the Lord came down ^e to look over the city and the tower that the humans ^f were building. ⁶The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” ⁸So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth, ^g and they stopped building the city. ⁹Therefore it is called Babylon, ^h,ⁱ,^j for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth.

From Shem to Abram

¹⁰These are the family records ^k of Shem. Shem lived 100 years and fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. ¹¹After he fathered Arpachshad, Shem lived 500 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹²Arpachshad lived 35 years ^l and fathered Shelah. ¹³After he fathered Shelah, Arpachshad lived 403 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁴Shelah lived 30 years and fathered Eber. ¹⁵After he fathered Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁶Eber lived 34 years and fathered Peleg. ¹⁷After he fathered Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ¹⁸Peleg lived 30 years and fathered Reu. ¹⁹After he fathered Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁰Reu lived 32 years and fathered Serug. ²¹After he fathered Serug, Reu lived 207 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²²Serug lived 30 years and fathered Nahor. ²³After he fathered Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁴Nahor lived 29 years and fathered Terah. ^{m 25}After he fathered Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and fathered other sons and daughters. ²⁶Terah lived 70 years and fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷These are the family records of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. ²⁸Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans, during his father Terah’s lifetime. ²⁹Abram and Nahor took wives: Abram’s wife was named Sarai, ⁿ and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah. ^o She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ³⁰Sarai was unable to conceive; ^p she did not have a child.

³¹Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans ^q to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. ³²Terah lived 205 years and died in Haran.