The Bible in Basic English BBE
Good News Translation GNT
1 Come near, you nations, and give ear; take note, you peoples: let the earth and everything in it give ear; the world and all those living in it.
1
Come, people of all nations! Gather around and listen. Let the whole earth and everyone living on it come here and listen.
2 For the Lord is angry with all the nations, and his wrath is burning against all their armies: he has put them to the curse, he has given them to destruction.
2
The Lord is angry with all the nations and all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction.
3 Their dead bodies will be thick on the face of the earth, and their smell will come up, and the mountains will be flowing with their blood, and all the hills will come to nothing.
3
Their corpses will not be buried, but will lie there rotting and stinking; and the mountains will be red with blood.
4 And the heavens will be rolled together like the roll of a book: and all their army will be gone, like a dead leaf from the vine, or a dry fruit from the fig-tree.
4
The sun, moon, and stars will crumble to dust. The sky will disappear like a scroll being rolled up, and the stars will fall like leaves dropping from a vine or a fig tree.
5 For my sword in heaven is full of wrath: see, it is coming down on Edom, in punishment on the people of my curse.
5
The Lord has prepared his sword in heaven, and now it will strike Edom, those people whom he has condemned to destruction.
6 The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom.
6
His sword will be covered with their blood and fat, like the blood and fat of lambs and goats that are sacrificed. The Lord will offer this sacrifice in the city of Bozrah; he will make this a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 And the strong oxen will go down to death together with the smaller cattle.
7
The people will fall like wild oxen and young bulls, and the earth will be red with blood and covered with fat.
8 For it is the day of the Lord's punishment, when he gives payment for the wrongs done to Zion.
8
This is the time when the Lord will rescue Zion and take vengeance on her enemies.
9 And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire.
9
The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulfur. The whole country will burn like tar.
10 It will not be put out day or night; its smoke will go up for ever: it will be waste from generation to generation; no one will go through it for ever.
10
It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again.
11 But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land.
11
Owls and ravens will take over the land. The Lord will make it a barren waste again, as it was before the creation.
12 The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end.
12
There will be no king to rule the country, and the leaders will all be gone.
13 And thorns will come up in her fair houses, and waste plants in her strong towers: and foxes will make their holes there, and it will be a meeting-place for ostriches.
13
Thorns and thistles will grow up in all the palaces and walled towns, and jackals and owls will live in them.
14 And the beasts of the waste places will come together with the jackals, and the evil spirits will be crying to one another, even the night-spirit will come and make her resting-place there.
14
Wild animals will roam there, and demons will call to each other. The night monster will come there looking for a place to rest.
15 The arrowsnake will make her hole and put her eggs there, and get her young together under her shade: there the hawks will come together by twos.
15
Owls will build their nests, lay eggs, hatch their young, and care for them there. Vultures will gather there, one after another.
16 See what is recorded in the book of the Lord: all these will be there, not one without the other: the mouth of the Lord has given the order, and his spirit has made them come together.
16
Search in the Lord's book of living creatures and read what it says. Not one of these creatures will be missing, and not one will be without its mate. The Lord has commanded it to be so; he himself will bring them together.
17 And he has given them their heritage, and by his hand it has been measured out to them: it will be theirs for ever, their resting-place from generation to generation.
17
It is the Lord who will divide the land among them and give each of them a share. They will live in the land age after age, and it will belong to them forever.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.