After the first verse which serves to summarize the general concept that God created everything, this second verse goes slightly more specific in its attempt to describe conditions that is inconceivable to man (he will never be able to experience or imagine or encounter such an environment). Naturally, this verse will be highly dependent on the specific translations, the purpose and style of the translators, etc. To learn more about the different translations and their intents, styles, and methods, Fee and Stuart's book "How to Read the Bible for all its worth" is my favorite for an introduction to laymen.

All translations have their reasons for specific choice of words, and we should not dismiss them so readily. For instance, the comment that "was" could be "become" is actually a footnote in NIV when I use BibleGateway.com (which happens to be a great tool to compare up to 5 different versions at one time). As for the comment that thinks the Message's paraphrase a bad translation and overlooks the tremendous insight Peterson offers, it would be similar to a novice in physics laughing at how E=mc2 can be derived from looking around everyday life without further analysis.

Genesis 1:2