11 ¹ ONCE UPON A TIME all the world spoke a single language and used the same Or used few words. 11 ² As men journeyed in the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 11 ³ They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and bake them hard'; they used bricks for stone and bitumen for mortar. 11 ⁴ 'Come,' they said, 'let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves ; or we shall be dispersed all over the earth.' 11 ⁵ Then the LORD came down to see the city and tower which mortal men had built, 11 ⁶ and he said, 'Here they are, one people with a single language, and now they have started to do this; henceforward nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach. 11 ⁷ Come, let us go down there and confuse their speech, so that they will not understand what they say to one another.' 11 ⁸ So the LORD dispersed them from there all over the earth, and they left off building the city. 11 ⁹ That is why it is called Babel That is Babylon, because the LORD there made a babble Of the language of all the world; from that place the LORD scattered men all Over the face of the earth.