English Original
In the beginning, all people lived in one place. As the land grew crowded, families migrated and eventually settled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. There, they discovered how to make bricks from the soil and harden them with fire, making it easy to build houses.
They then aspired to build a great city to rule over others. They said to one another, "Let us build a tower whose top reaches to the heavens. Let us give our city a name, so we may stay together and not be scattered across the earth."
So they began constructing their great tower, piling bricks story upon story. However, God did not wish humanity to live so closely united. He knew that if they remained together, the wicked would lead the good astray, and the world would become evil again, as it was before the flood. Therefore, as they built, God changed their speech.
At that time, everyone spoke the same language. Suddenly, they could no longer understand each other. People from one family could not comprehend those from another—much as today, an English speaker cannot converse with a French speaker without learning French.
Consequently, the people scattered to the north, south, east, and west. The earth became populated with people living in many lands and speaking many languages. The tower remained forever unfinished. The city they had built was named Babel, meaning confusion, because it was there that God confounded the language of all the earth. The city was afterward known as Babylon, and the tower as the Tower of Babel.
中文翻译
起初，所有人都居住在一个地方。随着这片土地变得拥挤，各个家族开始迁徙，最终定居在底格里斯河和幼发拉底河之间。在那里，他们发现了如何用泥土制砖并用火将其烧硬，这使得建造房屋变得容易。
随后，他们渴望建造一座伟大的城市来统治他人。他们彼此商议说：“让我们建造一座塔，塔顶通天。让我们为我们的城市命名，这样我们就可以聚在一起，而不会分散到世界各地。”
于是他们开始建造巨塔，将砖块一层层垒高。然而，上帝并不希望人类如此紧密地团结在一起。他知道，如果他们继续聚居，恶人会引诱好人偏离正道，世界将再次变得邪恶，如同大洪水之前那样。因此，在他们建造时，上帝变乱了他们的语言。
那时，所有人都说同一种语言。突然间，他们再也无法互相理解。一个家族的人听不懂另一个家族的话——就像今天，一个说英语的人不学习法语就无法与说法语的人交谈一样。
结果，人们分散到了北方、南方、东方和西方。大地上遍布着居住在不同土地、说着不同语言的人们。那座塔永远未能完工。他们建造的城市被命名为巴别（Babel），意为“混乱”，因为正是在那里，上帝变乱了全地的语言。这座城市后来被称为巴比伦，那座塔则被称为巴别塔。