Genesis 11

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¹You know, at first everyone talked the same language. And as people started to move around to different places,

²they stopped on a flat plain in Babylonia country, and they stayed there.

³Then they said to each other, “Look, we can make bricks here. So come on, we will do that. We will bake them properly so that they are good strong bricks, and we will use them to build a city here. So come on, we will build a big high building in that city. It will be so high that it will go right up into the sky.” (You see, they used bricks and tar instead of stones and cement.) And they said, “If we do this, everyone will think we are smart. Then we will not wander all over the earth, but we will stay together right here.”

⁵God came down to look at that city and its big building.

⁶He said, “These people can all talk to each other in the same language, so they can do anything they want. If they keep on going this way, nothing will stop them from doing anything.

⁷Come on, we will go down to these people and we will make them talk in different languages. Then they will not understand each other, and they will be all mixed up. They will not work things out with each other, so they will not keep building properly.”

⁸So God made all the people talk in different languages. None of them could understand anything the others were saying. So they stopped building their big city.

⁹They all left that city and went to live in lots of different places, all over the world. This is the way God scattered the people all over the world. And they called that city Babel, which means mixed up.

¹⁰This is the story of Shem’s family. Shem was 100 years old when he had a son called Arphaxad. That was 2 years after the big flood.

¹¹Shem lived for 500 years after he had Arphaxad, and he had more sons and daughters.

¹²Arphaxad was 36 years old when he had a son called Shelah.

¹³Arphaxad lived for 403 years after he had Shelah, and he had more sons and daughters.

¹⁴Shelah was 30 years old when he had a son called Eber.

¹⁵Shelah lived for 430 years after he had Eber, and he had more sons and daughters.

¹⁶Eber was 34 years old when he had a son called Peleg.

¹⁷Eber lived for 209 years after he had Peleg, and he had more sons and daughters.

¹⁸Peleg was 30 years old when he had a son called Reu.

¹⁹Peleg lived for 209 years after he had Reu, and he had more sons and daughters.

²⁰Reu was 32 years old when he had a son called Serug.

²¹Reu lived for 207 years after he had Serug, and he had more sons and daughters.

²²Serug was 30 years old when he had a son called Nahor.

²³Serug lived for 200 years after he had Nahor, and he had more sons and daughters.

²⁴Nahor was 29 years old when he had a son called Terah.

²⁵Nahor lived for 119 years after he had Terah, and he had more sons and daughters.

²⁶Terah had 3 sons after he was 70 years old. Their names were Abram, Nahor and Haran.

²⁷This is the story of Terah’s family. Terah had 3 sons, called Abram, Nahor and Haran. Haran had a son called Lot.

²⁸Haran, Terah’s son, had 2 daughters called Milcah and Iscah. After that, Haran died, while his father was still alive. He died in Ur, in Chaldea country, the place where he was born. Nahor, Haran’s brother, married Milcah. And Abram married a woman called Sarai,

³⁰but they didn’t have any kids. Sarai just couldn’t have a baby.

³¹Then Terah went away from Ur, in Chaldea country. He took his family with him. They were his son Abram, and Abram’s wife Sarai, and his grand-son Lot. They all got up and left Ur, and they started to go to the land called Canaan. But they stopped half way, at a place called Haran, and they stayed there.

³²Terah lived till he was 205 years old, then he died there in Haran.