Wycliffe's Bible 1Nigh, ye heathen men, to hear; ye peoples, perceive; the earth, and the fullness thereof, the world, and all burgeoning thereof, hear ye. (Come near, or come close, ye heathen, to listen; ye peoples, understand; let the earth, and its fullness, the world, and all its burgeoning, listen.) 2For why [the] indignation of the Lord is on all folks, and strong vengeance on all the chivalry of them; he killed them, and gave them into slaying. (For the anger of the Lord is against all the nations, and his strong vengeance is against all their cavalry, or all their armies; he killed them, and gave them unto destruction.) 3The slain men of them shall be cast forth, and stink shall ascend of the carrions of them; [the] hills shall flow of the blood of them. (Their dead shall be thrown forth, and the stink shall go up from their corpses; the hills shall flow with their blood.) 4And all the chivalry of (the) heavens shall fail, and (the) heavens shall be folded together as a book, and all the knighthood of those shall float down, as the leaf of a vinery and of a fig tree falleth down. (And all the host of heaven shall fail, and the heavens shall be folded up like a book, and all their host shall float down like the leaf of a vine, and like the fig of a fig tree, that falleth down.) 5For my sword is filled in heaven; lo! it shall come down on Idumea, and on the people of my slaying, to doom. (For my sword is made ready in heaven; lo! it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people whom I will kill, for their doom/in judgement.) 6The sword of the Lord is filled of blood, it is made fat of the inner fatness of the blood of lambs and of bucks of goats, of the blood of rams full of marrow (The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, and it is made fat with inner fatness, yea, with the blood of lambs and of goat bucks, and with the fat from the kidneys of rams); for why the slain sacrifice of the Lord is in Bozrah, and great slaying is in the land of Edom. 7And unicorns shall go down with them, and bulls with them that be mighty (And wild oxen shall go down with them, and bulls with other mighty beasts); the land of them shall be filled with blood, and the earth of them with [the] inner fatness of fat beasts; 8for it is a day of vengeance of the Lord, a year of yielding of the doom of Zion. (for it is a day of the vengeance of the Lord, a year of yielding the justice, or the judgement, of Zion.) 9And the strands thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the earth thereof into brimstone; and the land thereof shall be into burning pitch, night and day. (And its streams shall be turned into pitch, and its land into brimstone; yea, its land shall become burning pitch, day and night.) 10It shall not be quenched without end, the smoke thereof shall go up from generation into generation, and it shall be desolate into worlds of worlds; none shall pass thereby. 11And (an) onocrotalus, and an urchin, shall wield it; and a capret, and a crow shall dwell therein; and a measure shall be stretched forth thereon, that it be driven (in)to nought, and an hanging plummet into desolation. 12The noble men thereof shall not be there; rather they shall call the king into help, and all the princes thereof shall be into nought. (They shall call for its noble men to rule the kingdom, but no one shall be there; and all its leaders shall come to nothing.) 13And thorns and nettles shall grow in the houses thereof, and a teasel in the strongholds thereof; and it shall be the couch of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches. 14And fiends, and wonderful beasts, like men in the higher part, and like asses in the nether part, and an hairy, shall meet; one shall cry to another. Lamia shall lie there, and find rest there to herself; (And fiends, and wonderful beasts, like men in the higher part, and like donkeys in the lower part, and hairy all over, shall meet; and one shall cry to the other. The lamia shall lie down there, and shall find rest there for herself;) 15there an urchin had ditches, and nourished out whelps (there a hedge-hog had dens, and nourished whelps), and digged about, and fostered in the shadow thereof; there kites were gathered together, one to another. 16Seek ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read ye; one of those things failed not, one sought not (in vain for) another; for he commanded that thing, that goeth forth of my mouth, and his spirit, he gathered them together. (Seek ye diligently in the Book of the Lord, and read ye; not one of them shall fail, not one shall seek in vain for another; for he hath commanded it with his mouth, and with his breath, he hath brought them together.) 17And he sent to them (the) heritage (And he gave them their inheritance), and his hand parted it in measure; till into without end they shall wield that land, in generation and into generation they shall dwell therein. WYCLIFFE’S BIBLE Comprising of Wycliffe’s Old Testament and Wycliffe’s New Testament (Revised Edition) Translated by JOHN WYCLIFFE and JOHN PURVEY A modern-spelling edition of their 14TH century Middle English translation, the first complete English vernacular version, with an Introduction by TERENCE P. NOBLE Used by Permission Bible Hub |