Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyRSS

reading for the day 25/04/2024 ; previous day - next day ; back to index ;

Joshua 24 / Basic English



1. Then Joshua got all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; and he sent for the responsible men of Israel and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers; and they took their place before God.
2. And Joshua said to all the people, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: In the past your fathers, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, were living on the other side of the River: and they were worshipping other gods.
3. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, guiding him through all the land of Canaan; I made his offspring great in number, and gave him Isaac.
4. And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: to Esau I gave Mount Seir, as his heritage; but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
5. And I sent Moses and Aaron, troubling Egypt by all the signs I did among them: and after that I took you out.
6. I took your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the Red Sea; and the Egyptians came after your fathers to the Red Sea, with their war-carriages and their horsemen.
7. And at their cry, the Lord made it dark between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea go over them, covering them with its waters; your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt: then for a long time you were living in the waste land.
8. And I took you into the lands of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan; and they made war on you, and I gave them into your hands and you took their land; and I sent destruction on them before you.
9. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, went up to war against Israel; and he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, to put a curse on you:
10. But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him.
11. Then you went over Jordan and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho made war on you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites: and I gave them up into your hands.
12. And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow.
13. And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting.
14. So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord.
15. And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord.
16. Then the people in answer said, Never will we give up the Lord to be the servants of other gods;
17. For it is the Lord our God who has taken us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house, and who did all those great signs before our eyes, and kept us safe on all our journeys, and among all the peoples through whom we went:
18. And the Lord sent out from before us all the peoples, the Amorites living in the land: so we will be the servants of the Lord, for he is our God.
19. And Joshua said to the people, You are not able to be the servants of the Lord, for he is a holy God, a God who will not let his honour be given to another: he will have no mercy on your wrongdoing or your sins.
20. If you are turned away from the Lord and become the servants of strange gods, then turning against you he will do you evil, cutting you off, after he has done you good.
21. And the people said to Joshua, No! But we will be the servants of the Lord.
22. And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have made the decision to be the servants of the Lord. And they said, We are witnesses.
23. Then, he said, put away the strange gods among you, turning your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.
24. And the people said to Joshua, We will be the servants of the Lord our God, and we will give ear to his voice.
25. So Joshua made an agreement with the people that day, and gave them a rule and a law in Shechem.
26. And Joshua put these words on record, writing them in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and put it up there under the oak-tree which was in the holy place of the Lord.
27. And Joshua said to all the people, See now, this stone is to be a witness against us; for all the words of the Lord have been said to us in its hearing: so it will be a witness against you if you are false to the Lord your God.
28. Then Joshua let the people go away, every man to his heritage.
29. Now after these things, the death of Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, took place, he being then a hundred and ten years old.
30. And they put his body in the earth in the land of his heritage in Timnath-serah, in the hill-country of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash.
31. And Israel was true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the older men who were still living after Joshua's death, and had seen what the Lord had done for Israel.
32. And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had taken up from Egypt, they put in the earth in Shechem, in the property which Jacob had got from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred shekels: and they became the heritage of the children of Joseph.
33. Then the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, took place; and his body was put in the earth in the hill of Phinehas his son, which had been given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.

Judges 1 / Basic English



1. Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel made request to the Lord, saying, Who is to go up first to make war for us against the Canaanites?
2. And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands.
3. Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my heritage, so that we may make war against the Canaanites; and I will then go with you into your heritage. So Simeon went with him.
4. And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek.
5. And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
6. But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.
7. And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.
8. Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.
9. After that the children of Judah went down to make war on the Canaanites living in the hill-country and in the south and in the lowlands.
10. And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now in earlier times Hebron was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai to the sword.
11. And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)
12. And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it.
13. And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife.
14. Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?
15. And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in a dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So Caleb gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.
16. Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites;
17. And Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and overcame the Canaanites living in Zephath, and put it under the curse; and he gave the town the name of Hormah.
18. Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and its limit, and Ekron and its limit.
19. And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the hill-country for his heritage; but he was unable to make the people of the valley go out, for they had war-carriages of iron.
20. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.
21. And the children of Judah did not make the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem go out; the Jebusites are still living with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem.
22. And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and the Lord was with them.
23. So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now the name of the town in earlier times was Luz.)
24. And the watchers saw a man coming out of the town, and said to him, If you will make clear to us the way into the town, we will be kind to you.
25. So he made clear to them the way into the town, and they put it to the sword; but they let the man and all his family get away safe.
26. And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.
27. And Manasseh did not take away the land of the people of Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, or of Taanach and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Dor and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Ibleam and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Megiddo and its daughter-towns, driving them out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land.
28. And whenever Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, without driving them out completely.
29. And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living in Gezer go out; but the Canaanites went on living in Gezer among them.
30. Zebulun did not make the people of Kitron or the people of Nahalol go out; but the Canaanites went on living among them and were put to forced work.
31. And Asher did not take the land of the people of Acco, or Zidon, or Ahlab, or Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob, driving them out;
32. But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites, the people of the land, without driving them out.
33. Naphtali did not take the land of the people of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, driving them out; but he was living among the Canaanites in the land; however, the people of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath were put to forced work.
34. And the children of Dan were forced into the hill-country by the Amorites, who would not let them come down into the valley;
35. For the Amorites would go on living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; but the children of Joseph became stronger than they, and put them to forced work.
36. And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.

Luke 16 / Basic English



1. And another time he said to the disciples, There was a certain man of great wealth who had a servant; and it was said to him that this servant was wasting his goods.
2. And he sent for him and said, What is this which is said about you? give me an account of all you have done, for you will no longer be the manager of my property.
3. And the servant said to himself, What am I to do now that my lord takes away my position? I have not enough strength for working in the fields, and I would be shamed if I made requests for money from people in the streets.
4. I have come to a decision what to do, so that when I am put out of my position they will take me into their houses.
5. And sending for every one who was in debt to his lord he said to the first, What is the amount of your debt to my lord?
6. And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said, Take your account straight away and put down fifty.
7. Then he said to another, What is the amount of your debt? And he said, A hundred measures of grain. And he said to him, Take your account and put down eighty.
8. And his lord was pleased with the false servant, because he had been wise; for the sons of this world are wiser in relation to their generation than the sons of light.
9. And I say to you, Make friends for yourselves through the wealth of this life, so that when it comes to an end, you may be taken into the eternal resting-places.
10. He who is true in a little, is true in much; he who is false in small things, is false in great.
11. If, then, you have not been true in your use of the wealth of this life, who will give into your care the true wealth?
12. And if you have not been true in your care of the property of other people, who will give you that which is yours?
13. No man may be a servant to two masters: for he will have hate for the one and love for the other; or he will keep to the one and have no respect for the other. You may not be servants of God and of wealth.
14. And the Pharisees, who had a great love of money, hearing these things, were making sport of him.
15. And he said, You take care to seem right in the eyes of men, but God sees your hearts: and those things which are important in the opinion of men, are evil in the eyes of God.
16. The law and the prophets were till John: but then came the preaching of the kingdom of God, and everyone makes his way into it by force.
17. But heaven and earth will come to an end before the smallest letter of the law may be dropped out.
18. Everyone who puts away his wife and takes another, is a false husband: and he who is married to a woman whose husband has put her away, is no true husband to her.
19. Now there was a certain man of great wealth, who was dressed in fair clothing of purple and delicate linen, and was shining and glad every day.
20. And a certain poor man, named Lazarus, was stretched out at his door, full of wounds,
21. Desiring the broken bits of food which came from the table of the man of wealth; and even the dogs came and put their tongues on his wounds.
22. And in time the poor man came to his end, and angels took him to Abraham's breast. And the man of wealth came to his end, and was put in the earth.
23. And in hell, being in great pain, lifting up his eyes he saw Abraham, far away, and Lazarus on his breast.
24. And he gave a cry and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may put the end of his finger in water and put it on my tongue, for I am cruelly burning in this flame.
25. But Abraham said, Keep in mind, my son, that when you were living, you had your good things, while Lazarus had evil things: but now, he is comforted and you are in pain.
26. And in addition, there is a deep division fixed between us and you, so that those who might go from here to you are not able to do so, and no one may come from you to us.
27. And he said, Father, it is my request that you will send him to my father's house;
28. For I have five brothers; and let him give them an account of these things, so that they may not come to this place of pain.
29. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets; let them give ear to what they say.
30. And he said, No, father Abraham, but if someone went to them from the dead, their hearts would be changed.
31. And he said to him, If they will not give attention to Moses and the prophets, they will not be moved even if someone comes back from the dead.