Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

1 Kings (3 Kings) 12 / Basic English

1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king,
2. And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim;
3. And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,
4. Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.
5. And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.
6. Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?
7. And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today, caring for them and giving them a gentle answer, then they will be your servants for ever.
8. But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, and went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him:
9. And said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?
10. And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us; will you make it less? say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;
11. If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.
12. So all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come back to me the third day.
13. And the king gave them a rough answer, giving no attention to the suggestion of the old men;
14. But giving them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.
15. So the king did not give ear to the people; and this came about by the purpose of the Lord, so that what he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, might be effected.
16. And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O Israel; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents.
17. (But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.)
18. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.
19. So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.
20. Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.
21. When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.
22. But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,
23. Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the men of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people:
24. The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers, the children of Israel; go back, every man to his house, because this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the word of the Lord, and went back, as the Lord had said.
25. Then Jeroboam made the town of Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim a strong place, and was living there; and from there he went out and did the same to Penuel.
26. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will go back to the family of David:
27. If the people go up to make offerings in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their heart will be turned again to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah; and they will put me to death and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah.
28. So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough; see! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.
29. And he put one in Beth-el and the other in Dan.
30. And this became a sin in Israel; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan.
31. And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people.
32. And Jeroboam gave orders for a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar. And in the same way, in Beth-el, he gave offerings to the oxen which he had made, placing in Beth-el the priests of the high places he had made.
33. He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

1 Kings (3 Kings) 13 / Basic English

1. Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings.
2. And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you.
3. The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given: See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned.
4. Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.
5. And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.
6. Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.
7. And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.
8. But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place;
9. For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came.
10. So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.
11. Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king.
12. Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.
13. So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,
14. And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.
15. Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal.
16. But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place;
17. For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.
18. Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him.
19. So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.
20. But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back;
21. And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord,
22. But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers.
23. Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.
24. And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.
25. And some men, going by, saw the body stretched out in the road with the lion by its side; and they came and gave news of it in the town where the old prophet was living.
26. Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said.
27. And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.
28. And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side: the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass.
29. Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping.
30. And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!
31. And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones.
32. For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.
33. After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places.
34. And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.

John 13 / Basic English

1. Now before the feast of the Passover, it was clear to Jesus that the time had come for him to go away from this world to the Father. Having once had love for those in the world who were his, his love for them went on to the end.
2. So while a meal was going on, the Evil One having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to be false to him,
3. Jesus, being conscious that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he came from God and was going to God,
4. Got up from table, put off his robe and took a cloth and put it round him.
5. Then he put water into a basin and was washing the feet of the disciples and drying them with the cloth which was round him.
6. So he came to Simon Peter. Peter said, Lord, are my feet to be washed by you?
7. And Jesus, answering, said to him, What I do is not clear to you now, but it will be clear to you in time to come.
8. Peter said, I will never let my feet be washed by you, never. Jesus said in answer, If I do not make you clean you have no part with me.
9. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head.
10. Jesus said to him, He who is bathed has need only to have his feet washed and then he is clean all over: and you, my disciples, are clean, but not all of you.
11. (He had knowledge who was false to him; that is why he said, You are not all clean.)
12. Then, after washing their feet and putting on his robe again, he took his seat and said to them, Do you see what I have done to you?
13. You give me the name of Master and Lord: and you are right; that is what I am.
14. If then I, the Lord and the Master, have made your feet clean, it is right for you to make one another's feet clean.
15. I have given you an example, so that you may do what I have done to you.
16. Truly I say to you, A servant is not greater than his lord; and he who is sent is not greater than the one who sent him.
17. If these things are clear to you, happy are you if you do them.
18. I am not talking of you all: I have knowledge of my true disciples, but things are as they are, so that the Writings may come true, The foot of him who takes bread with me is lifted up against me.
19. From this time forward, I give you knowledge of things before they come about, so that when they come about you may have belief that I am he.
20. Truly I say to you, He who takes to his heart anyone whom I send, takes me to his heart; and he who so takes me, takes him who sent me.
21. When Jesus had said this he was troubled in spirit, and gave witness, saying, Truly I say to you, that one of you will be false to me.
22. Then the eyes of the disciples were turned on one another, in doubt as to whom he had in mind.
23. There was at table one of his disciples, the one dear to Jesus, resting his head on Jesus' breast.
24. Making a sign to him, Simon Peter said, Who is it he is talking about?
25. He, then, resting his head on Jesus' breast, said to him, Lord, who is it?
26. This was the answer Jesus gave: It is the one to whom I will give this bit of bread after I have put it in the vessel. Then he took the bit of bread, put it into the vessel, and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
27. And when Judas took the bread Satan went into him. Then Jesus said to him, Do quickly what you have to do.
28. Now it was not clear to anyone at table why he said this to him.
29. Some were of the opinion that because Judas kept the money-bag Jesus said to him, Get the things we have need of for the feast; or, that he was to give something to the poor.
30. So Judas, having taken the bit of bread, straight away went out: and it was night.
31. Then when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is glory given to the Son of man, and God is given glory in him.
32. If God is given glory in him, God will give him glory in himself, and will give him glory even now.
33. My dear children, I am only to be with you a little longer. Then you will be looking for me: and as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, Where I am going you may not come.
34. I give you a new law: Have love one for another; even as I have had love for you, so are you to have love one for another.
35. By this it will be clear to all men that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.
36. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus said in answer, Where I am going you may not come with me now, but you will come later.
37. Peter said to him, Why may I not come with you even now? I will give up my life for you.
38. Jesus said in answer, Will you give up your life for me? Truly I say to you, Before the cry of the cock you will have said three times that you are not my disciple.