They ignored God's word. They said to one another, “Let's not spread out/scatter in all directions. Let's stay united. Let's stay right here, without roaming. Let's make a big camp, let's make a big hill-like (thing) also, extremely big upwards, right up to the sky. Everyone else will talk about us. They will say, 'Those people in Shinar are clever, they are truly smart'.” They got mud, they made bricks, they baked them in the fire to make them hard, they made very many. Joining them they glued them with bitumen. They built, they built. (i.e., they kept building for a long time.)