Genesis 4:12 - Plain English Version

¹² If you try to grow plants in the ground, nothing will grow for you. You will go away from me. And you will walk around in lots of places, but you will not have a home.”

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

¹² when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

¹² When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth [in perpetual exile, a degraded outcast].

American Standard Version (1901)

¹² when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth.

Common English Bible

¹² When you farm the fertile land, it will no longer grow anything for you, and you will become a roving nomad on the earth.”

Catholic Public Domain Version

¹² When you work it, it will not give you its fruit; a vagrant and a fugitive shall you be upon the land."

Genesis 4:12 Cross References

Genesis 4:13

Cain said to God, “God, you are too hard on me.

Genesis 4:14

If you make me leave this land where I grow my food, and if you make me go away from you, then I will have to walk around everywhere, and I will not have a home. Then somebody will find me and finish me.”

Romans 8:20

Think about Adam and Eve. They went wrong, and after that, God let everything in the world get messed up. It was people that went wrong, not the other things in the world, but everything else went wrong anyway, from the things that the people did.