Biblical Translation

English
(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

Français: (translated by myself)
(1) Au commencement Dieu a créé le ciel et la terre. (2) Maintenant la terre était informe et vide, l’obscurité était sur la surface de l’abîme, et l’esprit de Dieu plainait sur les eaux. (3) Et Dieu a dit, « Que la lumière soit, » et il y avait la lumière. (4) Dieu voyait que la lumière était bonne, et il séparait la lumière de l’obscurité. (5) Dieu appelait la lumière « jour, » et l’obscurité il appelait « nuit. » Et il y avait soir, et il y avait matin-la première journée.

Français (translated by Edouard Négiar)
(1) Au commencement Dieu créa le ciel et la terre. (2) A ce moment la terre était sans forme et vide, l’obscurité était sur la surface de l’abîme, et l’esprit de Dieu plainait sur les eaux. (3) Et Dieu dit, « Que la lumière soit, » et la lumière fut. (4) Dieu vit que la lumière était bonne, et il sépara la lumière de l’obscurité. (5) Dieu appela la lumière « jour, » et il appela l’obscurité « nuit. » Et le soir vint, et il y eut le matin-la première journée.

I included the translation that I did myself and also the translation that a friend of mine, Edouard, who is a native French speaker, did. I found it interesting to compare the two. Mainly, there are differences in verb tenses. I used the imperfect tense but he chose to use the French literary tense "passé simple" which is considered more poetic and used in texts such as the Bible. Also, to retain the sense of the passage, he rearranged certain nouns and verbs, making them read more naturally in French.

Choices I had to make:

Choosing between “sur” or “au dessus.” One is used for the physical meaning of being on top of an object and another has a looser sense of being above something.

To describe hovering, I had to choose between “plainait” and “vol stationnaire” which both mean hovering, but one is literally ‘stationary flight’ while the other is more of a theoretical hovering like ‘she’s been hovering around him all day.’

“Jour” and “journée” both mean day but one is used in a more factual way (like ‘I was gone for 5 days’) while one attaches emotional meaning to the duration of time (‘pendant la journée’ =during the day).

Anything lost? I think in this case specifically, it was fairly simple to retain the meaning and sense of the passage, but this is perhaps because language is my first language and the French translation makes sense in my head because it mirrors the English one. That's why I asked a native speaker to do the same translation. I wanted to see if there was anything I was missing. He did make additional changes that took the translation to the next level-giving it the same sense and feel that the passage gives to native English speakers.