4:10a

fall down: Here the phrase fall down refers to kneeling and putting the face to the ground with arms outstretched toward someone. This position showed complete humility before that person and honored him. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

prostrated themselves (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
throw themselves to the ground (NET Bible)

Some languages have a different action that shows complete humility and honor to someone. If that is true in your language, you may want to use that action here. See how you translated this phrase in 3:9, where the Berean Standard Bible translates it as “bow down.”

4:10b

and they worship Him who lives forever and ever: The elders worshiped the one before whom they had fallen down. See the General Comment on 4:10a–b below.

worship: This word refers to honoring someone or something as sacred/divine. Other ways to translate this word are:

venerate
-or-
revere

If possible, refer to your translation of this word in Matthew 2:2, Luke 4:8, or 1 Corinthians 14:25.

General Comment on 4:10a–b

The phrase “fall down before the One seated on the throne” (4:10a) refers to worshiping God. The phrase “worship Him who lives for ever and ever” (4:10b) also refers to worshiping God. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly imply or indicate that these two phrases refer to worshiping two different people. If that is true in your language, you may want to combine the two phrases into one phrase. For example:

the twenty-four elders fall down before the forever-living one who sits on the throne, and they worship him

4:10c

They cast their crowns before the throne, saying: The elders do this during their worship (4:10b). In some languages it is more natural to connect 4:10c to their worship. For example:

and threw down their crowns in front of the throne, saying (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-

10b worship him who lives forever and ever, 10c laying their crowns before the throne and saying

crowns: The crowns of the elders are a symbol of leadership, just like the crowns of kings. Translate this word as you did in 4:4.

saying: They probably all spoke in unison. So, as in 4:8c, you may want to translate this word as:

say ⌊together⌋
-or-
chant

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.