A Tall Tower

TEXT: Genesis 11:1-9    

After the flood everyone in the whole world spoke the same language. They could talk to each other and understand each other.

One day the people decided they could be very great and important if they built a tower that went all the way to heaven.

So the people went to work. They made bricks from mud and straw and baked them hard in the hot sun. They used slime for mortar to fix the bricks together for their tall tower. It was very hard work but the people wanted everyone to know that they made the tower that reached to heaven, so they worked that much harder. They dreamed of the time their wonderful tower would be finished.

God was watching what was happening and decided to come down to earth to see the tower that the people were building. He could tell the people’s hearts were not right and was very sad. He saw that they were selfish and too proud to follow his wise plans for them.

God said “The people think they can do anything because they all speak the same language. They have already begun to turn away from me. Soon there won’t be any good left and all they’ll do is sin.” So God mixed up their language. This way they wouldn’t be able to work together to sin against God.

Now the people could no longer understand each other. They could not understand what their neighbors were saying, and their neighbors couldn’t understand the people who talked to them. All the people suddenly spoke different languages. Some of the people spoke German, some Chinese, others English, plus many other languages. The people were very confused. This was the beginning of all the different languages in the world.

Then God scattered all the people all over the whole earth. They had to stop building their tower because they could no longer understand each other. They called the unfinished tower Babel because God confused their language there.