Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Isaiah 16 / Basic English

1. And they will send ... to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2. For the daughters of Moab will be like wandering birds, like a place from which the young birds have gone in flight, at the ways across the Arnon.
3. Give wise directions, make a decision; let your shade be as night in full day: keep safe those who are in flight; do not give up the wandering ones.
4. Let those who have been forced out of Moab have a resting-place with you; be a cover to them from him who is making waste their land: till the cruel ones are cut off, and wasting has come to an end, and those who take pleasure in crushing the poor are gone from the land.
5. Then a king's seat will be based on mercy, and one will be seated on it in the tent of David for ever; judging uprightly, and quick to do righteousness.
6. We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it is; how he is lifted up in pride and passion: his high words about himself are false.
7. For this cause everyone in Moab will give cries of grief for Moab: crushed to the earth, they will be weeping for the men of Kir-hareseth.
8. For the fields of Heshbon are waste, the vine of Sibmah is dead; the lords of nations were overcome by the produce of her vines; her vine-plants went as far as Jazer, and came even to the waste land; her branches were stretched out to the sea.
9. For this cause my sorrow for the vine of Sibmah will be like the weeping for Jazer: my eyes are dropping water on you, O Heshbon and Elealeh! For they are sounding the war-cry over your summer fruits and the getting in of your grain;
10. And all joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field; and in the vine-gardens there are no songs or sounds of joy: the crushing of grapes has come to an end, and its glad cry has been stopped.
11. For this cause the cords of my heart are sounding for Moab, and I am full of sorrow for Kir-heres.
12. And when Moab goes up to the high place, and makes prayer in the house of his god, it will have no effect.
13. This is the word which the Lord said about Moab in the past.
14. But now the Lord has said, In three years, the years of a servant working for payment, the glory of Moab, all that great people, will be turned to shame, and the rest of Moab will be very small and without honour.

Isaiah 17 / Basic English

1. The word about Damascus. See, they have made Damascus a town no longer; it has become a waste place.
2. Her towns are unpeopled for ever; there the flocks take their rest in peace, without fear.
3. The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.
4. And it will be in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made small, and the strength of his body will become feeble.
5. And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.
6. But it will be like a man shaking an olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel.
7. In that day a man's heart will be turned to his Maker, and his eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8. He will not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars or to the sun-images which his fingers have made.
9. In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.
10. For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;
11. In the day of your planting you were watching its growth, and in the morning your seed was flowering: but its fruit is wasted away in the day of grief and bitter sorrow.
12. Ah! the voice of peoples, like the loud sounding of the seas, and the thundering of great nations rushing on like the bursting out of waters!
13. But he will put a stop to them, and make them go in flight far away, driving them like the waste of the grain on the tops of the mountains before the wind, and like the circling dust before the storm.
14. In the evening there is fear, and in the morning they are gone. This is the fate of those who take our goods, and the reward of those who violently take our property for themselves.

Isaiah 18 / Basic English

1. Ho! land of the sounding of wings, on the other side of the rivers of Ethiopia:
2. Which sends its representatives by the sea, even in ships of papyrus on the waters. Go back quickly, O representatives, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers.
3. All you peoples of the world, and you who are living on the earth, when a flag is lifted up on the mountains, give attention; and when the horn is sounded, give ear.
4. For this is what the Lord has said to me: I will be quiet, watching from my place; like the clear heat when the sun is shining, like a mist of dew in the heat of summer.
5. For before the time of getting in the grapes, after the opening of the bud, when the flower has become a grape ready for crushing, he will take away the small branches with knives, cutting down and taking away the wide-stretching branches.
6. They will be for the birds of the mountains, and for the beasts of the earth: the birds will come down on them in the summer, and the beasts of the earth in the winter.
7. In that time an offering will be made to the Lord of armies from a people tall and smooth, causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers, an offering taken to the place of the name of the Lord of armies, even Mount Zion.

Isaiah 19 / Basic English

1. The word about Egypt. See, the Lord is seated on a quick-moving cloud, and is coming to Egypt: and the false gods of Egypt will be troubled at his coming, and the heart of Egypt will be turned to water.
2. And I will send the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they will be fighting every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; town against town, and kingdom against kingdom.
3. And the spirit of Egypt will be troubled in her, and I will make her decisions without effect: and they will be turning to the false gods, and to those who make hollow sounds, and to those who have control of spirits, and to those who are wise in secret arts.
4. And I will give the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord; and a hard king will be their ruler, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.
5. And the waters of the sea will be cut off, and the river will become dry and waste:
6. And the rivers will have an evil smell; the stream of Egypt will become small and dry: all the water-plants will come to nothing.
7. The grass-lands by the Nile, and everything planted by the Nile, will become dry, or taken away by the wind, and will come to an end.
8. The fishermen will be sad, and all those who put fishing-lines into the Nile will be full of grief, and those whose nets are stretched out on the waters will have sorrow in their hearts.
9. And all the workers in linen thread, and those who make cotton cloth, will be put to shame.
10. And the makers of twisted thread will be crushed, and those who ... will be sad in heart.
11. The chiefs of Zoan are completely foolish; the wisest guides of Pharaoh have become like beasts: how do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the offspring of early kings?
12. Where, then, are your wise men? let them make clear to you, let them give you knowledge of the purpose of the Lord of armies for Egypt.
13. The chiefs of Zoan have become foolish, the chiefs of Noph are tricked, the heads of her tribes are the cause of Egypt's wandering out of the way.
14. The Lord has sent among them a spirit of error: and by them Egypt is turned out of the right way in all her doings, as a man overcome by wine is uncertain in his steps.
15. And in Egypt there will be no work for any man, head or tail, high or low, to do.
16. In that day the Egyptians will be like women: and the land will be shaking with fear because of the waving of the Lord's hand stretched out over it.
17. And the land of Judah will become a cause of great fear to Egypt; whenever its name comes to mind, Egypt will be in fear before the Lord of armies because of his purpose against it.
18. In that day there will be five towns in the land of Egypt using the language of Canaan, and making oaths to the Lord of armies; and one of them will be named, The Town of the Sun.
19. In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at the edge of the land.
20. And it will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of armies in the land of Egypt: when they are crying out to the Lord because of their cruel masters, then he will send them a saviour and a strong one to make them free.
21. And the Lord will give the knowledge of himself to Egypt, and the Egyptians will give honour to the Lord in that day; they will give him worship with offerings and meal offerings, and will take an oath to the Lord and give effect to it.
22. And the Lord will send punishment on Egypt, and will make them well again; and when they come back to the Lord he will give ear to their prayer and take away their disease.
23. In that day there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt will come into Assyria; and the Egyptians will give worship to the Lord together with the Assyrians.
24. In that day Israel will be the third together with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the earth:
25. Because of the blessing of the Lord of armies which he has given them, saying, A blessing on Egypt my people, and on Assyria the work of my hands, and on Israel my heritage.

2 Corinthians 2 / Basic English

1. But it was my decision for myself, not to come again to you with sorrow.
2. For if I give you sorrow, who then will make me glad, but he who is made sad by me?
3. And I said this very thing in my letter, for fear that when I came I might have sorrow from those from whom it was right for me to have joy; being certain of this, that my joy is the joy of you all.
4. For out of much trouble and pain of heart and much weeping I sent my letter to you; not to give you sorrow, but so that you might see how great is the love which I have to you.
5. But if anyone has been a cause of sorrow, he has been so, not to me only, but in some measure to all of you (I say this that I may not be over-hard on you).
6. Let it be enough for such a man to have undergone the punishment which the church put on him;
7. So that now, on the other hand, it is right for him to have forgiveness and comfort from you, for fear that his sorrow may be over-great.
8. For which cause my desire is that you will make your love to him clear by your acts.
9. And for the same reason I sent you a letter so that I might be certain of your desire to do my orders in all things.
10. But if you give forgiveness to anyone, I do the same: for if I have given forgiveness for anything, I have done it because of you, in the person of Christ;
11. So that Satan may not get the better of us: for we are not without knowledge of his designs.
12. Now when I came to Troas for the good news of Christ, and there was an open door for me in the Lord,
13. I had no rest in my spirit because Titus my brother was not there: so I went away from them, and came into Macedonia.
14. But praise be to God who makes us strong to overcome in Christ, and makes clear through us in every place the value of the knowledge of him.
15. For we are a sweet perfume of Christ to God in those who are getting salvation and in those who are going to destruction;
16. To the one it is a perfume of death to death; to the other a perfume of life to life. And who is enough for such things?
17. For we are not like the great number who make use of the word of God for profit: but our words are true, as from God, being said as before God in Christ.