diff --git a/scripts/oe-buildenv-internal b/scripts/oe-buildenv-internal
index 81ee784d31..56d341983e 100755
--- a/scripts/oe-buildenv-internal
+++ b/scripts/oe-buildenv-internal
@@ -29,27 +29,31 @@ if [ -z "$OE_SKIP_SDK_CHECK" ] && [ -n "$OECORE_SDK_VERSION" ]; then
     return 1
 fi
 
-# Make sure we're not using python v3.x. This check can't go into
-# sanity.bbclass because bitbake's source code doesn't even pass
-# parsing stage when used with python v3, so we catch it here so we
-# can offer a meaningful error message.
-py_v3_check=$(/usr/bin/env python --version 2>&1 | grep "Python 3")
-if [ -n "$py_v3_check" ]; then
-    echo >&2 "Bitbake is not compatible with python v3"
-    echo >&2 "Please set up python v2 as your default python interpreter"
+# Make sure we're not using python v3.x as 'python', we don't support it.
+py_v2_check=$(/usr/bin/env python --version 2>&1 | grep "Python 3")
+if [ -n "$py_v2_check" ]; then
+    echo >&2 "OpenEmbedded requires 'python' to be python v2 (>= 2.7.3), not python v3."
+    echo >&2 "Please set up python v2 as your default 'python' interpreter."
     return 1
 fi
-unset py_v3_check
+unset py_v2_check
 
-# Similarly, we now have code that doesn't parse correctly with older
-# versions of Python, and rather than fixing that and being eternally
-# vigilant for any other new feature use, just check the version here.
-py_v26_check=$(python -c 'import sys; print sys.version_info >= (2,7,3)')
-if [ "$py_v26_check" != "True" ]; then
-    echo >&2 "BitBake requires Python 2.7.3 or later"
+py_v27_check=$(python -c 'import sys; print sys.version_info >= (2,7,3)')
+if [ "$py_v27_check" != "True" ]; then
+    echo >&2 "OpenEmbedded requires 'python' to be python v2 (>= 2.7.3), not python v3."
+    echo >&2 "Please upgrade your python v2."
+fi
+unset py_v27_check
+
+# We potentially have code that doesn't parse correctly with older versions 
+# of Python, and rather than fixing that and being eternally vigilant for 
+# any other new feature use, just check the version here.
+py_v34_check=$(python3 -c 'import sys; print(sys.version_info >= (3,4,0))')
+if [ "$py_v34_check" != "True" ]; then
+    echo >&2 "BitBake requires Python 3.4.0 or later as 'python3'"
     return 1
 fi
-unset py_v26_check
+unset py_v34_check
 
 if [ -z "$BDIR" ]; then
     if [ -z "$1" ]; then