Luke 1:17 - Plain English Version

¹⁷ Remember Elijah, God’s man that lived a long time ago. He had God’s spirit in him, and he did powerful things. Well, in the same way, your son John will have God’s spirit in him, and he will do powerful things. He will get people ready for God. John will get people to turn around and live the right way. He will get the men that are fathers to love their kids properly. And he will get people to listen properly to the sensible words of good people. Even those people that don’t listen to God now, he will get them to listen to good people.”

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

¹⁷ And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

¹⁷ And he will [himself] go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn back the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient and incredulous and unpersuadable to the wisdom of the upright [which is the knowledge and holy love of the will of God]–in order to make ready for the Lord a people [perfectly] prepared [in spirit, adjusted and disposed and placed in the right moral state]. [Isa. 40:3; Mal. 4:5, 6.]

American Standard Version (1901)

¹⁷ And he shall go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to walk in the wisdom of the just; to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.

Common English Bible

¹⁷ He will go forth before the Lord, equipped with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, and he will turn the disobedient to righteous patterns of thinking. He will make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Catholic Public Domain Version

¹⁷ And he will go before him with the spirit and power of Elijah, so that he may turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the incredulous to the prudence of the just, so as to prepare for the Lord a completed people."

Luke 1:17 Cross References

Matthew 11:14

Look. Try to believe this. They wrote about John, but they didn’t use that name for him. They called him Elijah.”

Matthew 3:3

John was the man that Isaiah wrote about, a long time ago. Isaiah was one of God’s men, and God got him to write this in God’s book, “A man will be out in the bush, and he will call out to people. He will say, ‘You mob get ready. God is coming to this country, so you have to get ready for him. It is like when a big boss comes, and you have to make a good road for him.’ ”

Matthew 3:4

John wore rough clothes, made of camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt. He ate grasshoppers and bush honey.

Luke 1:16

And then, after he grows up, he will get lots of you Israel people to turn away from bad things and turn back to God.

Luke 1:76

Then Zekariah talked to his baby boy. He said, “This word is for you, my son. Everyone will know that you tell people messages from God. You will get things ready for God.

John 1:13

Yes, those people are in God’s family, but they were not born into it the way kids are born into human families. And they did not come from what a human mother or father wanted. God himself gave them new life and made them his kids.

John 3:28

Jesus is the special man that God sent to the world. Remember, I told you, ‘I am not the Christ, the special man that God promised to send to save his people. But God sent me to get people ready, so that they will listen to that special man.’ You heard me say that.

Acts 10:33

So right away I sent those men to bring you here. Thank you for coming. We are all here, and we know that God is with us. We are ready to hear everything that he told you to say to us.”

Colossians 1:12

And we want you to always say thank you to God, our father. He brought you into his family so that you will get the good things that he promised to give to his people. Then you will live with him in his good place.

2 Timothy 2:21

Well, it is like that too with people that belong to God. If you stop doing bad things, you are like gold things or silver things, and God will use you for the good jobs. You will live in a clean way, and you will be ready for God to use you any way he wants to.

1 Peter 2:9

But you are the people God picked out for himself. Together you work for him, like the men that looked after his ceremonies. You are his own family. God called you away from doing bad things, so you can do good things. It is like you used to live in the dark so that nobody could see you do bad things there, but now he called you away from that to live in his good light. So let’s tell everyone that God is really great and really good.

1 Samuel 7:5

Then Samuel told them all, “Send messengers to every place. I want all the Israel mob to meet together at that place called Mizpah. Then I will pray to God for everybody there.”