Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Isaiah 25 / Basic English

1. O Lord, you are my God; I will give praise to you, I will give honour to your name; for you have done great acts of power; your purposes in the past have been made true and certain in effect.
2. For you have made a town a waste place: a strong town a mass of broken walls; the tower of the men of pride has come to an end; it will never be put up again.
3. For this cause will the strong people give glory to you, the town of the cruel ones will be in fear of you.
4. For you have been a strong place for the poor and the crushed in their trouble, a safe place from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the wrath of the cruel ones is like a winter storm.
5. As heat by the shade of a cloud, the noise of the men of pride has been made quiet by you; as heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the cruel ones has been stopped.
6. And in this mountain will the Lord of armies make for all peoples a feast of good things, a feast of wines long stored, of good things sweet to the taste, of wines long kept and tested.
7. And in this mountain he will put an end to the shade covering the face of all peoples, and the veil which is stretched over all nations.
8. He has put an end to death for ever; and the Lord God will take away all weeping; and he will put an end to the shame of his people in all the earth: for the Lord has said it.
9. And in that day it will be said, See, this is our God; we have been waiting for him, and he will be our saviour: this is the Lord in whom is our hope; we will be glad and have delight in his salvation.
10. For in this mountain will the hand of the Lord come to rest, and Moab will be crushed down in his place, even as the dry stems of the grain are crushed under foot in the waste place.
11. And if he puts out his hands, like a man stretching out his hands in swimming, the Lord will make low his pride, however expert his designs.
12. And the strong tower of your walls has been broken by him, made low, and crushed even to the dust.

Isaiah 26 / Basic English

1. In that day will this song be made in the land of Judah: We have a strong town; he will make salvation our walls and towers.
2. Let the doors be open, so that the upright nation which keeps faith may come in.
3. The man whose heart is unmoved you will keep in peace, because his hope is in you.
4. Let your hope be in the Lord for ever: for the Lord Jah is an unchanging Rock.
5. For he has made low those who are lifted up, all the people of the town of pride: he makes it low, crushing it down to the earth; he makes it low in the dust.
6. It will be crushed under the feet of the poor and the steps of those who are in need.
7. The way of the good man is straight; the road of the upright is made smooth by you.
8. We have been waiting for you, O Lord; the desire of our soul is for the memory of your name.
9. In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.
10. Even if you are kind to the evil-doer, he will not go after righteousness; even in the land of the upright he will still go on in his wrongdoing, and will not see the glory of the Lord.
11. Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see: let them see ... yes, your haters will be burned up in the fire.
12. Lord, you will give us peace: for all our works are the outcome of your purpose.
13. O Lord, our God, other lords than you have had rule over us; but in you only is our salvation, and no other name will we take on our lips.
14. The dead will not come back to life: their spirits will not come back to earth; for this cause you have sent destruction on them, so that the memory of them is dead.
15. You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.
16. Lord, in trouble our eyes have been turned to you, we sent up a prayer when your punishment was on us.
17. As a woman with child, whose time is near, is troubled, crying out in her pain; so have we been before you, O Lord.
18. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.
19. Your dead will come back; their dead bodies will come to life again. Those in the dust, awaking from their sleep, will send out a song; for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades.
20. Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over.
21. For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer.

Isaiah 27 / Basic English

1. In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea.
2. In that day it will be said, A vine-garden of delight, make a song about it.
3. I, the Lord, am watching it; I will give it water at all times: I will keep it night and day, for fear that any damage comes to it.
4. My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.
5. Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.
6. In days to come Jacob will take root: Israel will put out buds and flowers; and the face of the world will be full of fruit.
7. Is his punishment like the punishment of those who overcame him? or are his dead as great in number as those he put to the sword?
8. Your anger against her has been made clear by driving her away; he has taken her away with his storm-wind in the day of his east wind.
9. So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.
10. For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.
11. When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.
12. And it will be in that day that the Lord will get together his grain, from the River to the stream of Egypt, and you will be got together with care, O children of Israel.
13. And it will be in that day that a great horn will be sounded; and those who were wandering in the land of Assyria, and those who had been sent away into the land of Egypt, will come; and they will give worship to the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

2 Corinthians 5 / Basic English

1. For we are conscious that if this our tent of flesh is taken down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in heaven.
2. For in this we are crying in weariness, greatly desiring to be clothed with our house from heaven:
3. So that our spirits may not be unclothed.
4. For truly, we who are in this tent do give out cries of weariness, for the weight of care which is on us; not because we are desiring to be free from the body, but so that we may have our new body, and death may be overcome by life.
5. Now he who has made us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a witness of what is to come.
6. So, then, we are ever without fear, and though conscious that while we are in the body we are away from the Lord,
7. (For we are walking by faith, not by seeing,)
8. We are without fear, desiring to be free from the body, and to be with the Lord.
9. For this reason we make it our purpose, in the body or away from it, to be well-pleasing to him.
10. For we all have to come before Christ to be judged; so that every one of us may get his reward for the things done in the body, good or bad.
11. Having in mind, then, the fear of the Lord, we put these things before men, but God sees our hearts; and it is my hope that we may seem right in your eyes.
12. We are not again requesting your approval, but we are giving you the chance of taking pride in us, so that you may be able to give an answer to those whose glory is in seeming, and not in the heart.
13. For if we are foolish, it is to God; or if we are serious, it is for you.
14. For it is the love of Christ which is moving us; because we are of the opinion that if one was put to death for all, then all have undergone death;
15. And that he underwent death for all, so that the living might no longer be living to themselves, but to him who underwent death for them and came back from the dead.
16. For this reason, from this time forward we have knowledge of no man after the flesh: even if we have had knowledge of Christ after the flesh, we have no longer any such knowledge.
17. So if any man is in Christ, he is in a new world: the old things have come to an end; they have truly become new.
18. But all things are of God, who has made us at peace with himself through Christ, and has given to us the work of making peace;
19. That is, that God was in Christ making peace between the world and himself, not putting their sins to their account, and having given to us the preaching of this news of peace.
20. So we are the representatives of Christ, as if God was making a request to you through us: we make our request to you, in the name of Christ, be at peace with God.
21. For him who had no knowledge of sin God made to be sin for us; so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.