Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Job 15 / Basic English

1. And Eliphaz the Temanite made answer and said,
2. Will a wise man make answer with knowledge of no value, or will he give birth to the east wind?
3. Will he make arguments with words in which is no profit, and with sayings which have no value?
4. Truly, you make the fear of God without effect, so that the time of quiet worship before God is made less by your outcry.
5. For your mouth is guided by your sin, and you have taken the tongue of the false for yourself.
6. It is by your mouth, even yours, that you are judged to be in the wrong, and not by me; and your lips give witness against you.
7. Were you the first man to come into the world? or did you come into being before the hills?
8. Were you present at the secret meeting of God? and have you taken all wisdom for yourself?
9. What knowledge have you which we have not? is there anything in your mind which is not in ours?
10. With us are men who are grey-haired and full of years, much older than your father.
11. Are the comforts of God not enough for you, and the gentle word which was said to you?
12. Why is your heart uncontrolled, and why are your eyes lifted up;
13. So that you are turning your spirit against God, and letting such words go out of your mouth?
14. What is man, that he may be clean? and how may the son of woman be upright?
15. Truly, he puts no faith in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his eyes;
16. How much less one who is disgusting and unclean, a man who takes in evil like water!
17. Take note and give ear to my words; and I will say what I have seen:
18. (The things which wise men have got from their fathers, and have not kept secret from us;
19. For only to them was the land given, and no strange people were among them:)
20. The evil man is in pain all his days, and the number of the years stored up for the cruel is small.
21. A sound of fear is in his ears; in time of peace destruction will come on him:
22. He has no hope of coming safe out of the dark, and his fate will be the sword;
23. He is wandering about in search of bread, saying, Where is it? and he is certain that the day of trouble is ready for him:
24. He is greatly in fear of the dark day, trouble and pain overcome him:
25. Because his hand is stretched out against God, and his heart is lifted up against the Ruler of all,
26. Running against him like a man of war, covered by his thick breastplate; even like a king ready for the fight,
27. Because his face is covered with fat, and his body has become thick;
28. And he has made his resting-place in the towns which have been pulled down, in houses where no man had a right to be, whose fate was to become masses of broken walls.
29. He does not get wealth for himself, and is unable to keep what he has got; the heads of his grain are not bent down to the earth.
30. He does not come out of the dark; his branches are burned by the flame, and the wind takes away his bud.
31. Let him not put his hope in what is false, falling into error: for he will get deceit as his reward.
32. His branch is cut off before its time, and his leaf is no longer green.
33. He is like a vine whose grapes do not come to full growth, or an olive-tree dropping its flowers.
34. For the band of the evil-doers gives no fruit, and the tents of those who give wrong decisions for reward are burned with fire.
35. Evil has made them with child, and they give birth to trouble; and the fruit of their body is shame for themselves.

Job 16 / Basic English

1. And Job made answer and said,
2. Such things have frequently come to my ears: you are comforters who only give trouble.
3. May words which are like the wind be stopped? or what is troubling you to make answer to them?
4. It would not be hard for me to say such things if your souls were in my soul's place; joining words together against you, and shaking my head at you:
5. I might give you strength with my mouth, and not keep back the comfort of my lips.
6. If I say what is in my mind, my pain becomes no less: and if I keep quiet, how much of it goes from me?
7. But now he has overcome me with weariness and fear, and I am in the grip of all my trouble.
8. It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.
9. I am broken by his wrath, and his hate has gone after me; he has made his teeth sharp against me: my haters are looking on me with cruel eyes;
10. Their mouths are open wide against me; the blows of his bitter words are falling on my face; all of them come together in a mass against me.
11. God gives me over to the power of sinners, sending me violently into the hands of evil-doers.
12. I was in comfort, but I have been broken up by his hands; he has taken me by the neck, shaking me to bits; he has put me up as a mark for his arrows.
13. His bowmen come round about me; their arrows go through my body without mercy; my life is drained out on the earth.
14. I am broken with wound after wound; he comes rushing on me like a man of war.
15. I have made haircloth the clothing of my skin, and my horn is rolled in the dust.
16. My face is red with weeping, and my eyes are becoming dark;
17. Though my hands have done no violent acts, and my prayer is clean.
18. O earth, let not my blood be covered, and let my cry have no resting-place!
19. Even now my witness is in heaven, and the supporter of my cause is on high.
20. My friends make sport of me; to God my eyes are weeping,
21. So that he may give decision for a man in his cause with God, and between a son of man and his neighbour.
22. For in a short time I will take the journey from which I will not come back.

Romans 6 / Basic English

1. What may we say, then? are we to go on in sin so that there may be more grace?
2. In no way. How may we, who are dead to sin, be living in it any longer?
3. Or are you without the knowledge that all we who had baptism into Christ Jesus, had baptism into his death?
4. We have been placed with him among the dead through baptism into death: so that as Christ came again from the dead by the glory of the Father, we, in the same way, might be living in new life.
5. For, if we have been made like him in his death, we will, in the same way, be like him in his coming to life again;
6. Being conscious that our old man was put to death on the cross with him, so that the body of sin might be put away, and we might no longer be servants to sin.
7. Because he who is dead is free from sin.
8. But if we are dead with Christ, we have faith that we will be living with him;
9. Having knowledge that because Christ has come back from the dead, he will never again go down to the dead; death has no more power over him.
10. For his death was a death to sin, but his life now is a life which he is living to God.
11. Even so see yourselves as dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.
12. For this cause do not let sin be ruling in your body which is under the power of death, so that you give way to its desires;
13. And do not give your bodies to sin as the instruments of wrongdoing, but give yourselves to God, as those who are living from the dead, and your bodies as instruments of righteousness to God.
14. For sin may not have rule over you: because you are not under law, but under grace.
15. What then? are we to go on in sin because we are not under law but under grace? Let it not be so.
16. Are you not conscious that you are the servants of him to whom you give yourselves to do his desire? if to sin, the end being death, or if to do the desire of God, the end being righteousness.
17. But praise be to God that though you were the servants of sin, you have now given yourselves freely to that form of teaching under which you were placed;
18. And being made free from sin you have been made the servants of righteousness.
19. I am using words in the way of men, because your flesh is feeble: as you gave your bodies as servants to what is unclean, and to evil to do evil, so now give them as servants to righteousness to do what is holy.
20. When you were servants of sin you were free from righteousness.
21. What fruit had you at that time in the things which are now a shame to you? for the end of such things is death.
22. But now, being free from sin, and having been made servants to God, you have your fruit in that which is holy, and the end is eternal life.
23. For the reward of sin is death; but what God freely gives is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.