Genesis 11

¹ At this time, everyone everywhere spoke the same language.

² As people moved east, they found a nice plain in Babylonia and decided to live there.

³ They came up with an idea and said, “Hey, let’s bake us some nice bricks.” They built with bricks instead of stone, and they used tar for mortar.

⁴ Then they said, “Let’s build ourselves a city, and we’ll have a huge tower that goes up to the sky, so we’ll be super famous; if we don’t we might end up being split up and spread out all over the world.”

⁵ But then God came down to see the city look at the tower they were building.

⁶ He was all, “If they’re able to do this because they all work together and speak the same language, then they’ll be able to do anything they put their minds to.

⁷ I’d better go down there and mess up their language so they won’t be able to understand each other anymore.”

⁸ So God forced them to scatter all over the world, and they stopped building the city.

⁹ That’s why the city was called Babylon – get it? “Babble”? – because that’s where God gave everyone different languages. Also it’s where they were when he made them spread out over the world.

¹⁰ Up next is Shem’s family line. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100, a boy was born to his line named Arphaxad.

¹¹ And Arphaxad was born, Shem lived another 500 years and had even more offspring.

¹² When Arphaxad was 35, he had a son named Cainan.

¹³ After Cainan was born, Arphaxad lived another 430 years and had more kids, and then he died. When Cainan was 130, a boy was born to his line named Shelah. After that, Cainan lived another 330 years and had more kids.

¹⁴ When Shelah was 30, he had a son named Eber.

¹⁵ After Eber, Shelah lived another 403 years and had more kids.

¹⁶ When Eber was 34 years, he had a sond named Peleg (a.k.a. Division).

¹⁷ After Peleg was born, Eber lived another 430 years and had more kids.

¹⁸ When Peleg was 30, he had a son named Reu.

¹⁹ After that, Peleg lived another 209 years and had more kids.

²⁰ When Reu was 32, he had a son namde Serug.

²¹ After Serug was born, Reu lived another 207 years and had more kids.

²² When Serug was 30, he had a son namde Nahor.

²³ After that, Serug lived another 200 years and had more kids.

²⁴ When Nahor was 29, he had a son named Terah.

²⁵ After that, Nahor lived another 119 years and had more kids.

²⁶ When Terah was 70, he had three sons named Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷ Up next is Terah’s family line. Terah had descendants named Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran had a son named Lot.

²⁸ While Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur (where the Chaldeans lived), where he was born.

²⁹ Abram and Nahor both got married. Abram’s wife was a chick named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was some girl named Milkah; her dad was Haran, who also had a daughter named Iskah.

³⁰ Sarai didn’t have any kids because she was barren.

³¹ Terah took Abram, Lot, and Sarai, and they left Ur to go to Canaan, but they stopped when they got to Harran and decided to live there.

³² Terah lived in Harran until he was 205, and then he died.