The Bible in Basic English BBE
New International Version NIV
1 And all the earth had one language and one tongue.
1
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2 And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.
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As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth.
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They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4 And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth.
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Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.
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But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.
6 And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.
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The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another.
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Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town.
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So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9 So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.
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That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.