Genesis 10:32-11:9 (Vespers, 1st reading)
- 32
- These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.
- 1
- Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
- 2
- 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.
- 3
- Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.
- 4
- And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
- 5
- But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
- 6
- And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
- 7
- “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
- 8
- So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
- 9
- Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.