“So Abraham left southeastern Iraq and began his journey. He settled in Haran and stayed there until his father passed away. Then God had him move to the land of Israel with only a promise.
All nations will serve him, his son, and his grandson —until the time of the fall of his own kingdom comes, when other nations and great kings will make him their servant.
Behold the land of the Babylonians. They are a people who have lost their identity. The Assyrians have made her a home for wild animals. They erected siege towers against her, demolished her palaces, and made her a heap of ruins.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they all departed together from the Chaldean city of Ur to go into the land of Canaan. But when they journeyed as far as Haran, they settled there.
Then a second angel followed, declaring, “She fell! She fell! Babylon the great is fallen! She once seduced the nations and made them all drink the wine of the passion of her harlotry!”
That is why the city was called Babel—because it was there that Yahweh confused the language of the whole world and from there the people were scattered over the face of the earth.
“ ‘Then, after seventy years, I will punish the king of Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans for their sin,’ declares Yahweh. ‘I will make their land desolate forever.