Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Job 38 / Basic English

1. And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,
2. Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?
3. Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.
4. Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge.
5. By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it?
6. On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone,
7. When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy?
8. Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place;
9. When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it,
10. Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors;
11. And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?
12. Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place;
13. So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it?
14. It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe;
15. And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken.
16. Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep?
17. Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you?
18. Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all.
19. Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark;
20. So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house?
21. No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great.
22. Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops,
23. Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting?
24. Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth?
25. By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder;
26. Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;
27. To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass?
28. Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist?
29. Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven?
30. The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered.
31. Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose?
32. Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you?
33. Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth?
34. Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters?
35. Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?
36. Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north?
37. By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth,
38. When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?
39. Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough,
40. When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood?
41. Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food?

1 Corinthians 1 / Basic English

1. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the purpose of God, and Sosthenes the brother,
2. To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been made holy in Christ Jesus, saints by the selection of God, with all those who in every place give honour to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. I give praise to my God for you at all times, because of the grace of God which has been given to you in Christ Jesus;
5. So that in him you have wealth in all things, in word and in knowledge of every sort;
6. Even as the witness of the Christ has been made certain among you:
7. So that having every grace you are living in the hope of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;
8. Who will give you strength to the end, to be free from all sin in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. God is true, through whom you have been given a part with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
10. Now I make request to you, my brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will all say the same thing, and that there may be no divisions among you, so that you may be in complete agreement, in the same mind and in the same opinion.
11. Because it has come to my knowledge, through those of the house of Chloe, that there are divisions among you, my brothers.
12. That is, that some of you say, I am of Paul; some say, I am of Apollos; some say, I am of Cephas; and some say, I am Christ's.
13. Is there a division in Christ? was Paul nailed to the cross for you? or were you given baptism in the name of Paul?
14. I give praise to God that not one of you had baptism from me, but Crispus and Gaius;
15. So that no one may be able to say that you had baptism in my name.
16. And I gave baptism to the house of Stephanas; but I am not certain that any others had baptism from me.
17. For Christ sent me, not to give baptism, but to be a preacher of the good news: not with wise words, for fear that the cross of Christ might be made of no value.
18. For the word of the cross seems foolish to those who are on the way to destruction; but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God.
19. As it says in the holy Writings, I will put an end to the wisdom of the wise, and will put on one side the designs of those who have knowledge.
20. Where is the wise? where is he who has knowledge of the law? where is the man of this world who has a love of discussion? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21. For because, by the purpose of God, the world, with all its wisdom, had not the knowledge of God, it was God's pleasure, by so foolish a thing as preaching, to give salvation to those who had faith in him.
22. Seeing that the Jews make request for signs, and the Greeks are looking for knowledge:
23. But we give the good news of Christ on the cross, a hard thing to the Jews, and a foolish thing to the Gentiles;
24. But to those of God's selection, Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.
25. Because what seems foolish in God is wiser than men; and what seems feeble in God is stronger than men.
26. For you see God's design for you, my brothers, that he has not taken a great number of the wise after the flesh, not the strong, not the noble:
27. But God made selection of the foolish things of this world so that he might put the wise to shame; and the feeble things that he might put to shame the strong;
28. And the low things of the world, and the things without honour, did God make selection of, yes, even the things which are not, so that he might make as nothing the things which are:
29. So that no flesh might have glory before God.
30. But God has given you a place in Christ Jesus, through whom God has given us wisdom and righteousness and salvation, and made us holy:
31. So that, as it is said in the holy Writings, Whoever has a desire for glory, let his glory be in the Lord.