Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Isaiah 14 / Basic English

1. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will again make Israel his special people, and will put them in their land; and the man from a strange country will take his place among them and be joined to the family of Jacob.
2. And the people will take them with them to their place: and the children of Israel will give them a heritage in the Lord's land as men-servants and women-servants, making them prisoners whose prisoners they were; and they will be rulers over their masters.
3. And it will be, in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your trouble, and from the hard yoke which they had put on you,
4. That you will take up this bitter song against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the cruel overseer come to an end! He who was lifted up in pride is cut off;
5. The stick of the evil-doers, the rod of the rulers, is broken by the Lord;
6. He whose rod was on the peoples with an unending wrath, ruling the nations in passion, with an uncontrolled rule.
7. All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song.
8. Even the trees of the wood are glad over you, the trees of Lebanon, saying, From the time of your fall no wood-cutter has come up against us with an axe.
9. The underworld is moved at your coming: the shades of the dead are awake before you, even the strong ones of the earth; all the kings of the world have got up from their seats.
10. They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are?
11. Your pride has gone down into the underworld, and the noise of your instruments of music; the worms are under you, and your body is covered with them.
12. How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies!
13. For you said in your heart, I will go up to heaven, I will make my seat higher than the stars of God; I will take my place on the mountain of the meeting-place of the gods, in the inmost parts of the north.
14. I will go higher than the clouds; I will be like the Most High.
15. But you will come down to the underworld, even to its inmost parts.
16. Those who see you will be looking on you with care, they will be in deep thought, saying, Is this the troubler of the earth, the shaker of kingdoms?
17. Who made the world a waste, overturning its towns; who did not let his prisoners loose from the prison-house.
18. All the kings of the earth are at rest in glory, every man in his house,
19. But you, like a birth before its time, are stretched out with no resting-place in the earth; clothed with the bodies of the dead who have been put to the sword, who go down to the lowest parts of the underworld; a dead body, crushed under foot.
20. As for your fathers, you will not be united with them in their resting-place, because you have been the cause of destruction to your land, and of death to your people; the seed of the evil-doer will have no place in the memory of man.
21. Make ready a place of death for his children, because of the evil-doing of their father; so that they may not come up and take the earth for their heritage, covering the face of the world with waste places.
22. For I will come up against them, says the Lord of armies, cutting off from Babylon name and offspring, son and son's son, says the Lord.
23. And I will make you a heritage for the hedgehog, and pools of water: and I will go through it with the brush of destruction, says the Lord of armies.
24. The Lord has taken an oath, saying, My design will certainly come about, and my purpose will be effected:
25. To let the Assyrian be broken in my land, and crushed under foot on my mountains: there will his yoke be taken away from them, and his rule over them come to an end.
26. This is the purpose for all the earth: and this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
27. For it is the purpose of the Lord of armies, and who will make it of no effect? when his hand is stretched out, by whom may it be turned back?
28. In the year of the death of King Ahaz this word came to the prophet:
29. Be not glad, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod which was on you is broken: for out of the snake's root will come a poison-snake, and its fruit will be a winged poison-snake.
30. And the poorest of the land will have food, and those in need will be given a safe resting-place: but your seed will come to an end for need of food, and the rest of you will be put to the sword.
31. Send out a cry, O door! Make sounds of sorrow, O town! All your land has come to nothing, O Philistia; for there comes a smoke out of the north, and everyone keeps his place in the line.
32. What answer, then, will my people give to the representatives of the nation? That the Lord is the builder of Zion, and she will be a safe place for the poor of his people.

Isaiah 15 / Basic English

1. The word about Moab. For in a night Ar of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer; for in a night Kir of Moab has become waste, and is seen no longer.
2. The daughter of Dibon has gone up to the high places, weeping: Moab is sounding her cry of sorrow over Nebo, and over Medeba: everywhere the hair of the head and of the face is cut off.
3. In their streets they are covering themselves with haircloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their public places, there is crying and bitter weeping.
4. Heshbon is crying out, and Elealeh; their voice is sounding even to Jahaz: for this cause the heart of Moab is shaking; his soul is shaking with fear.
5. My heart is crying out for Moab; her people go in flight to Zoar, and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for they go up with weeping by the slope of Luhith; on the way to Horonaim they send up a cry of destruction.
6. The waters of Nimrim will become dry: for the grass is burned up, the young grass is coming to an end, every green thing is dead.
7. For this cause they will take away their wealth, and the stores they have got together, over the stream of the water-plants.
8. For the cry has gone round the limits of Moab; as far as to Eglaim and Beer-elim.
9. For the waters of Dimon are full of blood: and I'm sending even more on Moab, a lion on those of Moab who go in flight, and on the rest of the land.

2 Corinthians 1 / Basic English

1. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the purpose of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia:
2. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort;
4. Who gives us comfort in all our troubles, so that we may be able to give comfort to others who are in trouble, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5. For as we undergo more of the pain which Christ underwent, so through Christ does our comfort become greater.
6. But if we are troubled, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which takes effect through your quiet undergoing of the same troubles which we undergo:
7. And our hope for you is certain; in the knowledge that as you take part in the troubles, so you will take part in the comfort.
8. For it is our desire that you may not be without knowledge of our trouble which came on us in Asia, that the weight of it was very great, more than our power, so that it seemed that we had no hope even of life:
9. Yes, we ourselves have had the answer of death in ourselves, so that our hope might not be in ourselves, but in God who is able to give life to the dead:
10. Who gave us salvation from so great a death: on whom we have put our hope that he will still go on to give us salvation;
11. You at the same time helping together by your prayer for us; so that for what has been given to us through a number of persons, praise may go up to God for us from all of them.
12. For our glory is in this, in the knowledge which we have that our way of life in the world, and most of all in relation to you, has been holy and true in the eyes of God; not in the wisdom of the flesh, but in the grace of God.
13. For in our letters we say no other things to you, but those which you are reading, and to which you give agreement, and, it is my hope, will go on doing so to the end:
14. Even as you have been ready, in part, to say that we are your glory, in the same way that you are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.
15. And being certain of this, it was my purpose to come to you before, so that you might have a second grace;
16. And by way of Corinth to go into Macedonia, and from there to come back again to you, so that you might send me on my way to Judaea.
17. If then I had such a purpose, did I seem to be changing suddenly? or am I guided in my purposes by the flesh, saying, Yes, today, and, No, tomorrow?
18. As God is true, our word to you is not Yes and No.
19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we were preaching among you, even I and Silvanus and Timothy, was not Yes and No, but in him is Yes.
20. For he is the Yes to all the undertakings of God: and by him all the words of God are made certain and put into effect, to the glory of God through us.
21. Now he who makes our faith strong together with you, in Christ, and has given us of his grace, is God;
22. And it is he who has put his stamp on us, even the Spirit, as the sign in our hearts of the coming glory.
23. But God is my witness that it was in pity for you that I did not come to Corinth at that time.
24. Not that we have authority over your faith, but we are helpers of your joy: for it is faith which is your support.