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IAnd it was: all the earth was one language and the same words. 2And it was when they were traveling from the east: and they found a valley in the land of Shinar and lived there. 3And they said to one another, “Come on, let’s make bricks and fire them.” And they had brick for stone, and they had bitumen for mortar. 4And they said, “Come on, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower, and its top will be in the skies, and we’ll make ourselves a name, or else we’ll scatter over the face of all the earth.”

5And YHWH went down to see the city and the tower that the children of humankind had built. 6And YHWH said, “Here, they’re one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they’ve begun to do. And now nothing that they’ll scheme to do will be precluded from them. 7Come on, let’s go down and babble their language there so that one won’t understand another’s language.” 8And YHWH scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9On account of this its name was called Babylon, because YHWH babbled the language of all the earth there, and YHWH scattered them from there over the face of all the earth.

10These are the records of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old, and he fathered Arpachshad, two years after the flood. “And Shem lived after his fathering Arpachshad five hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 12And Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and he fathered Shelah. 13And Arpachshad lived after his fathering Shelah three years and four hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 14And Shelah lived thirty years, and he fathered Eber. 15And Shelah lived after his fathering Eber three years and four hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. l6And Eber lived forty-three years, and he fathered Peleg. 17And Eber lived after his fathering Peleg thirty years and four hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 18And Peleg lived thirty years, and he fathered Reu. 19And Peleg lived after his fathering Reu nine years and two hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 20And Reu lived thirty-two years, and he fathered Serug. 21And Reu lived after his fathering Serug seven years and two hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 22And Serug lived thirty years, and he fathered Nahor. 23And Serug lived after his fathering Nahor two hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 24And Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and he fathered Terah. 25And Nahor lived after his fathering Terah nineteen years and a hundred years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 26And Terah lived seventy years, and he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27And these are the records of Terah: Terah had fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran had fathered Lot. 28And Haran died in the lifetime of Terah, his father, in the land of his birthplace, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29And Abram and Nahor took wives. Abram’s wife’s name was Sarai, and Nahor’s wife’s name was Milcah, daughter of Haran—father of Milcah and father of Iscah. 30And Sarai was infertile. She did not have a child. 31And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram, his son; and they went with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan. And they came as far as Haran, and they stayed there.* 32And Terah’s days were five years and two hundred years. And Terah died in Haran.