Confusion
A city, a tower and one language shared by everyone: that is how Genesis 11 begins. The people want to build upward and make a name for themselves, “lest we be scattered abroad.” The LORD comes down to see what they are doing, confounds their speech so that they cannot understand one another, and scatters them across the earth. The place is named Babel, and the story gives that name its meaning (Genesis 11:9). Some readers see a warning about pride, others an account of why the nations differ; the passage itself simply tells what was built, what was said and what followed. Read all nine verses in order.
9 verses
Genesis
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.