The city and tower of Babel

1 And the whole earth had one language, one speech, and one plan. They spoke the holy language, the language in which the world had been created at the beginning. 2 While they were traveling from the east, they found a plain in the land of Babel, and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us mold bricks and put them in the furnace.” And they used bricks in place of stone, and clay for mortar.

4 And they said, “Come, we will build ourselves a city and a tower, and its top will reach the heights of the heavens, and we will make ourselves an idol on its top, and put a sword in its hand to draw up battle formations against Him, before we are scattered across the face of the earth.”

5 And the Lord revealed Himself to punish them for the work on the city and tower that people had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have planned to do, and now they will not be prevented from doing whatever they plan.”

7 And the Lord said to the seventy angels who stand in His presence, “Come, we will go down and confuse their language there, so that people will not understand their neighbors’ speech.”⁠a

8 And the Word of the Lord was revealed against the city, and with Him were seventy angels, corresponding to seventy nations, each with his people’s language and the written characters of that language in his hand. And He scattered them from there across the face of the whole earth into seventy languages. And one did not know what his neighbor would say, and they killed one another, and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore He named it Babel, because there the Lord confused the speech of all the inhabitants of the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of all the earth.

The descendants of Shem

10 This is Shem’s genealogy. Shem was a hundred years old, and he fathered Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 11 And Shem lived five hundred years after he fathered Arphaxad, and fathered sons and daughters.

12 And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and fathered Shelah. 13 And Arphaxad lived four hundred and thirty years after he fathered Shelah, and fathered sons and daughters.

14 And Shelah lived thirty years, and fathered Eber. 15 And Shelah lived four hundred and three years after he fathered Eber, and fathered sons and daughters.

16 And Eber lived thirty-four years, and fathered Peleg. 17 And Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after he fathered Peleg, and fathered sons and daughters.

18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and fathered Reu. 19 And Peleg lived two hundred and nine years after he fathered Reu, and fathered sons and daughters.

20 And Reu lived thirty-two years, and fathered Serug. 21 And Reu lived two hundred and seven years after he fathered Serug, and fathered sons and daughters.

22 And Serug lived thirty years, and fathered Nahor. 23 And Serug lived two hundred years after he fathered Nahor, and fathered sons and daughters.

24 And Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and fathered Terah. 25 And Nahor lived one hundred and sixteen years after he fathered Terah, and fathered sons and daughters. 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and fathered Abram and Nahor and Haran.

Terah’s family and the furnace

27 This is Terah’s genealogy. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. 28 And when Nimrod had thrown Abram into the fiery furnace because he would not worship his idol,⁠b and the fire had no power to burn him, Haran became uncertain and said, “If Nimrod wins, I will be on his side, but if Abram wins, I will be on his side.”

And when all the people who were there saw that the fire had no power over Abram, they said to themselves, “Isn’t Haran, Abram’s brother, full of divination and magic, and hasn’t he spoken spells over the fire to stop it from burning his brother?”

Immediately fire fell from the heavens above and consumed him, and Haran died in the sight of Terah his father, where he was burned in the land of his birth, in the fiery furnace that the Chaldeans had made for Abram his brother.

29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah, who is Sarai. 30 And Sarai could not have children. She had no child.

31 And Terah took Abram his son, and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram his son, and went out with them from the fire of the Chaldeans, to go to the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran and settled there. 32 And Terah lived a total of two hundred and five years. And Terah died in Haran.