First Reading: Genesis 11:1-9

¹ Now the whole earth had one language and few words.
² And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
³ And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
⁵ And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built.
⁶ And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for 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 left off building the city.
⁹ Therefore its name was called Ba’bel, 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.