Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Job 17 / Basic English

1. My spirit is broken, my days are ended, the last resting-place is ready for me.
2. Truly, those who make sport of me are round about me, and my eyes become dark because of their bitter laughing.
3. Be pleased, now, to be responsible for me to yourself; for there is no other who will put his hand in mine.
4. You have kept their hearts from wisdom: for this cause you will not give them honour.
5. As for him who is false to his friend for a reward, light will be cut off from the eyes of his children.
6. He has made me a word of shame to the peoples; I have become a mark for their sport.
7. My eyes have become dark because of my pain, and all my body is wasted to a shade.
8. The upright are surprised at this, and he who has done no wrong is troubled because of the evil-doers.
9. Still the upright keeps on his way, and he who has clean hands gets new strength.
10. But come back, now, all of you, come; and I will not see a wise man among you.
11. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the desires of my heart.
12. They are changing night into day; they say, The light is near the dark.
13. If I am waiting for the underworld as my house, if I have made my bed in the dark;
14. If I say to the earth, You are my father; and to the worm, My mother and my sister;
15. Where then is my hope? and who will see my desire?
16. Will they go down with me into the underworld? Will we go down together into the dust?

Job 18 / Basic English

1. Then Bildad the Shuhite made answer and said,
2. How long will it be before you have done talking? Get wisdom, and then we will say what is in our minds.
3. Why do we seem as beasts in your eyes, and as completely without knowledge?
4. But come back, now, come: you who are wounding yourself in your passion, will the earth be given up because of you, or a rock be moved out of its place?
5. For the light of the sinner is put out, and the flame of his fire is not shining.
6. The light is dark in his tent, and the light shining over him is put out.
7. The steps of his strength become short, and by his design destruction overtakes him.
8. His feet take him into the net, and he goes walking into the cords.
9. His foot is taken in the net; he comes into its grip.
10. The twisted cord is put secretly in the earth to take him, and the cord is placed in his way.
11. He is overcome by fears on every side, they go after him at every step.
12. His strength is made feeble for need of food, and destruction is waiting for his falling footstep.
13. His skin is wasted by disease, and his body is food for the worst of diseases.
14. He is pulled out of his tent where he was safe, and he is taken away to the king of fears.
15. In his tent will be seen that which is not his, burning stone is dropped on his house.
16. Under the earth his roots are dry, and over it his branch is cut off.
17. His memory is gone from the earth, and in the open country there is no knowledge of his name.
18. He is sent away from the light into the dark; he is forced out of the world.
19. He has no offspring or family among his people, and in his living-place there is no one of his name.
20. At his fate those of the west are shocked, and those of the east are overcome with fear.
21. Truly, these are the houses of the sinner, and this is the place of him who has no knowledge of God.

Job 19 / Basic English

1. And Job made answer and said,
2. How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words?
3. Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong.
4. And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself.
5. If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me,
6. Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net.
7. Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.
8. My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark.
9. He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.
10. I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree.
11. His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.
12. His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine.
13. He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.
14. My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.
15. I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country.
16. At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him.
17. My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.
18. Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me.
19. All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me.
20. My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.
21. Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me.
22. Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?
23. If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book!
24. And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!
25. But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust;
26. And ... without my flesh I will see God;
27. Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.
28. If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him:
29. Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge.

Romans 7 / Basic English

1. Is it not clear, my brothers (I am using an argument to those who have knowledge of the law), that the law has power over a man as long as he is living?
2. For the woman who has a husband is placed by the law under the power of her husband as long as he is living; but if her husband is dead, she is free from the law of the husband.
3. So if, while the husband is living, she is joined to another man, she will get the name of one who is untrue to her husband: but if the husband is dead, she is free from the law, so that she is not untrue, even if she takes another man.
4. In the same way, my brothers, you were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, even to him who came again from the dead, so that we might give fruit to God.
5. For when we were in the flesh, the evil passions which came into being through the law were working in our bodies to give the fruit of death.
6. But now we are free from the law, having been made dead to that which had power over us; so that we are servants in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the letter.
7. What then is to be said? is the law sin? in no way. But I would not have had knowledge of sin but for the law: for I would not have been conscious of desire if the law had not said, You may not have a desire for what is another's.
8. But sin, taking its chance through that which was ordered by the law, was working in me every form of desire: because without the law sin is dead.
9. And there was a time when I was living without the law: but when the law gave its orders, sin came to life and put me to death;
10. And I made the discovery that the law whose purpose was to give life had become a cause of death:
11. For I was tricked and put to death by sin, which took its chance through the law.
12. But the law is holy, and its orders are holy, upright, and good.
13. Was then that which is good, death to me? In no way. But the purpose was that sin might be seen to be sin by working death to me through that which is good; so that through the orders of the law sin might seem much more evil.
14. For we are conscious that the law is of the spirit; but I am of the flesh, given into the power of sin.
15. And I have no clear knowledge of what I am doing, for that which I have a mind to do, I do not, but what I have hate for, that I do.
16. But, if I do that which I have no mind to do, I am in agreement with the law that the law is good.
17. So it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me.
18. For I am conscious that in me, that is, in my flesh, there is nothing good: I have the mind but not the power to do what is right.
19. For the good which I have a mind to do, I do not: but the evil which I have no mind to do, that I do.
20. But if I do what I have no mind to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me.
21. So I see a law that, though I have a mind to do good, evil is present in me.
22. In my heart I take pleasure in the law of God,
23. But I see another law in my body, working against the law of my mind, and making me the servant of the law of sin which is in my flesh.
24. How unhappy am I! who will make me free from the body of this death?
25. I give praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So with my mind I am a servant to the law of God, but with my flesh to the law of sin.