Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Job 7 / Basic English

1. Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment?
2. As a servant desiring the shades of evening, and a workman looking for his payment:
3. So I have for my heritage months of pain to no purpose, and nights of weariness are given to me.
4. When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.
5. My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again.
6. My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope.
7. O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good.
8. The eye of him who sees me will see me no longer: your eyes will be looking for me, but I will be gone.
9. A cloud comes to an end and is gone; so he who goes down into the underworld comes not up again.
10. He will not come back to his house, and his place will have no more knowledge of him.
11. So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry.
12. Am I a sea, or a sea-beast, that you put a watch over me?
13. When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease;
14. Then you send dreams to me, and visions of fear;
15. So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains.
16. I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath.
17. What is man, that you have made him great, and that your attention is fixed on him,
18. And that your hand is on him every morning, and that you are testing him every minute?
19. How long will it be before your eyes are turned away from me, so that I may have a minute's breathing-space?
20. If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself?
21. And why do you not take away my sin, and let my wrongdoing be ended? for now I go down to the dust, and you will be searching for me with care, but I will be gone.

Job 8 / Basic English

1. Then Bildad the Shuhite made answer and said,
2. How long will you say these things, and how long will the words of your mouth be like a strong wind?
3. Does God give wrong decisions? or is the Ruler of all not upright in his judging?
4. If your children have done evil against him, then their punishment is from his hand.
5. If you will make search for God with care, and put your request before the Ruler of all;
6. If you are clean and upright; then he will certainly be moved to take up your cause, and will make clear your righteousness by building up your house again.
7. And though your start was small, your end will be very great.
8. Put the question now to the past generations, and give attention to what has been searched out by their fathers:
9. (For we are but of yesterday, and have no knowledge, because our days on earth are gone like a shade:)
10. Will they not give you teaching, and say words of wisdom to you?
11. Will the river-plant come up in its pride without wet earth? will the grass get tall without water?
12. When it is still green, without being cut down, it becomes dry and dead before any other plant.
13. So is the end of all who do not keep God in mind; and the hope of the evil-doer comes to nothing:
14. Whose support is cut off, and whose hope is no stronger than a spider's thread.
15. He is looking to his family for support, but it is not there; he puts his hope in it, but it comes to nothing.
16. He is full of strength before the sun, and his branches go out over his garden.
17. His roots are twisted round the stones, forcing their way in between them.
18. If he is taken away from his place, then it will say, I have not seen you.
19. Such is the joy of his way, and out of the dust another comes up to take his place.
20. Truly, God will not give up him who is without sin, and will not take evil-doers by the hand.
21. The time will come when your mouth will be full of laughing, and cries of joy will come from your lips.
22. Your haters will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the sinner will not be seen again.

Romans 2 / Basic English

1. So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging: for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things.
2. And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things.
3. But you who are judging another for doing what you do yourself, are you hoping that God's decision will not take effect against you?
4. Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart?
5. But by your hard and unchanged heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of the revelation of God's judging in righteousness;
6. Who will give to every man his right reward:
7. To those who go on with good works in the hope of glory and honour and salvation from death, he will give eternal life:
8. But to those who, from a love of competition, are not guided by what is true, will come the heat of his wrath,
9. Trouble and sorrow on all whose works are evil, to the Jew first and then to the Greek;
10. But glory and honour and peace to all whose works are good, to the Jew first and then to the Greek:
11. For one man is not different from another before God.
12. All those who have done wrong without the law will get destruction without the law: and those who have done wrong under the law will have their punishment by the law;
13. For it is not the hearers of the law who will be judged as having righteousness before God, but only the doers:
14. For when the Gentiles without the law have a natural desire to do the things in the law, they are a law to themselves;
15. Because the work of the law is seen in their hearts, their sense of right and wrong giving witness to it, while their minds are at one time judging them and at another giving them approval;
16. In the day when God will be a judge of the secrets of men, as it says in the good news of which I am a preacher, through Jesus Christ.
17. But as for you who have the name of Jew, and are resting on the law, and take pride in God,
18. And have knowledge of his desires, and are a judge of the things which are different, having the learning of the law,
19. In the belief that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in the dark,
20. A teacher of the foolish, having in the law the form of knowledge and of what is true;
21. You who give teaching to others, do you give it to yourself? you who say that a man may not take what is not his, do you take what is not yours?
22. You who say that a man may not be untrue to his wife, are you true to yours? you who are a hater of images, do you do wrong to the house of God?
23. You who take pride in the law, are you doing wrong to the honour of God by behaviour which is against the law?
24. For the name of God is shamed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is said in the holy Writings.
25. It is true that circumcision is of use if you keep the law, but if you go against the law it is as if you had it not.
26. If those who have not circumcision keep the rules of the law, will it not be credited to them as circumcision?
27. And they, by their keeping of the law without circumcision, will be judges of you, by whom the law is broken though you have the letter of the law and circumcision.
28. The true Jew is not one who is only so publicly, and circumcision is not that which may be seen in the flesh:
29. But he is a Jew who is a secret one, whose circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.