The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Genesis
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Chapter 11
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1
Hitherto, the world had only one way of speech, only one language.
2
And now, as men travelled westwards, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and made themselves a home there;
3
Here we can make bricks, they said to one another, baked with fire; and they built, not in stone, but in brick, with pitch for their mortar.
4
It would be well, they said, to build ourselves a city, and a tower in it with a top that reaches to heaven; we will make ourselves a great people, instead of scattering over the wide face of earth.
5
But now the Lord came down to look at the city, with its tower, which Adam’s children were building;
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and he said, Here is a people all one, with a tongue common to all; this is but the beginning of their undertakings, and what is to prevent them carrying out all they design?
7
It would be well to go down and throw confusion into the speech they use there, so that they will not be able to understand each other.
8
Thus the Lord broke up their common home, and scattered them over the earth, and the building of the city came to an end.
9
That is why it was called Babel, Confusion, because it was there that the Lord confused the whole world’s speech, and scattered them far away, over the wide face of earth.
10
These were the descendants of Sem; Sem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood.
11
He lived five hundred years more.
12
Arphaxad was thirty-five years old when he begot Sale,
13
and lived three hundred and three years more.
14
Sale was thirty years old when he begot Heber,
15
and lived four hundred and three years more.
16
Heber was thirty-four years old when he begot Phaleg,
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and lived four hundred and thirty years more.
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Phaleg was thirty years old when he begot Reu,
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and lived two hundred and nine years more.
20
Reu was thirty-two years old when he begot Sarug,
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and lived two hundred and seven years more.
22
Sarug was thirty years old when he begot Nachor,
23
and lived two hundred years more.
24
Nachor was twenty-nine years old when he begot Thare,
25
and lived a hundred and nineteen years more. All these had other sons and daughters besides.
26
And Thare, after reaching the age of seventy, became the father of Abram, of Nachor, and of Aran.
27
These are the descendants of Thare; Thare’s sons were called Abram, Nachor and Aran, and Aran had a son called Lot.
28
This Aran died before his father Thare, in Ur of the Chaldees, the country of his birth.
29
Abram and Nachor married; Abram’s wife was called Sarai, and Nachor’s wife was called Melcha. Her father Aran had two children, Melcha herself and Jescha.
30
Sarai was barren, and had no children.
31
And now Thare, with his son Abram, and his grandson Lot, son of Aran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, who had married his son Abram, left Ur of the Chaldees and set out for the land of Chanaan. They went as far as Haran, and there they settled.
32
At Haran, at the age of two hundred and five, Thare died.
