1. The whole world had one language with a common vocabulary.
2. As people moved toward the east, they found a plain in Shinar [Babylonia] and settled there.
3. They said to one another, “Let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used bricks as stones and tar as mortar.
4. Then they said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t become scattered all over the face of the earth.”