Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Jeremiah 13 / Basic English

1. This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a linen band and put it round you and do not put it in water.
2. So, as the Lord said, I got a band for a price and put it round my body.
3. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying,
4. Take the band which you got for a price, which is round your body, and go to Parah and put it in a secret place there in a hole of the rock.
5. So I went and put it in a secret place by Parah, as the Lord had said to me.
6. Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to Parah and get the band which I gave you orders to put there.
7. So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the band from the place where I had put it away: and the band was damaged and of no use for anything.
8. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
9. The Lord has said, In this way I will do damage to the pride of Judah and to the great pride of Jerusalem.
10. These evil people who say they will not give ear to my words, who go on in the pride of their hearts and have become servants and worshippers of other gods, will become like this band which is of no use for anything.
11. For as a band goes tightly round a man's body, so I made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah tightly united to me; so that they might be a people for me and a name and a praise and a glory: but they would not give ear.
12. So you are to say this word to them: This is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: Every skin bottle will be full of wine; and they will say to you, Is it not quite clear to us that every skin bottle will be full of wine?
13. Then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, I will make all the people of this land, even the kings seated on David's seat, and the priests and the prophets and all the people of Jerusalem, overcome with strong drink.
14. I will have them smashed against one another, fathers and sons together, says the Lord: I will have no pity or mercy, I will have no feeling for them to keep me from giving them to destruction.
15. Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up: for these are the words of the Lord.
16. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he makes it dark, and before your feet are slipping on the dark mountains, and, while you are looking for a light, he makes it into deep dark, into black night.
17. But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.
18. Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Make yourselves low, be seated on the earth: for the crown of your glory has come down from your heads.
19. The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no one to make them open: Judah is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is taken away as prisoners.
20. Let your eyes be lifted up (O Jerusalem), and see those who are coming from the north. Where is the flock which was given to you, your beautiful flock?
21. What will you say when he puts over you those whom you yourself have made your friends? will not pains take you like a woman in childbirth?
22. And if you say in your heart, Why have these things come on me? because of the number of your sins, your skirts have been uncovered and violent punishment overtakes you.
23. Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be changed, or the markings on the leopard? Then it might be possible for you to do good, who have been trained to do evil.
24. So I will send them in all directions, as dry grass is taken away by the wind of the waste land.
25. This is your fate, the part measured out to you by me, says the Lord, because you have put me out of your memory and put your faith in what is false.
26. So I will have your skirts uncovered before your face, in order that your shame may be seen.
27. I have seen your disgusting acts, even your false behaviour and your cries of desire and your loose ways on the hills in the field. Unhappy are you, O Jerusalem, you have no desire to be made clean; how long will you be in turning back to me?

Jeremiah 14 / Basic English

1. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water.
2. Judah is weeping and its doors are dark with sorrow, and people are seated on the earth clothed in black; and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up.
3. Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.
4. Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads.
5. And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass.
6. And the asses of the field on the open hilltops are opening their mouths wide like jackals to get air; their eyes are hollow because there is no grass.
7. Though our sins give witness against us, do something, O Lord, for the honour of your name: for again and again we have been turned away from you, we have done evil against you.
8. O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why are you like one who is strange in the land, and like a traveller putting up his tent for a night?
9. Why are you like a man surprised, like a man of war who is not able to give help? but you, O Lord, are with us, and we are named by your name; do not go away from us.
10. This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even so they have been glad to go from the right way; they have not kept their feet from wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep their wrongdoing in mind and send punishment for their sins.
11. And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this people for their good.
12. When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease.
13. Then I said, Ah, Lord God! see, the prophets say to them, You will not see the sword or be short of food; but I will give you certain peace in this place.
14. Then the Lord said to me, The prophets say false words in my name, and I gave them no orders, and I said nothing to them: what they say to you is a false vision and wonder-working words without substance, the deceit of their hearts.
15. So this is what the Lord has said about the prophets who make use of my name, though I sent them not, and say, The sword and need of food will not be in this land: the sword and need of food will put an end to those prophets.
16. And the people to whom they are prophets will be pushed out dead into the streets of Jerusalem, because there is no food, and because of the sword; and they will have no one to put their bodies into the earth, them or their wives or their sons or their daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing on them.
17. And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be streaming with water night and day, and let it not be stopped; for the virgin daughter of my people is wounded with a great wound, with a very bitter blow.
18. If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.
19. Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul turned in disgust from Zion? why have you given us blows from which there is no one to make us well? we were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there was only a great fear.
20. We are conscious, O Lord, of our sin and of the wrongdoing of our fathers: we have done evil against you.
21. Do not be turned from us in disgust, because of your name; do not put shame on the seat of your glory: keep us in mind, let not your agreement with us be broken.
22. Are any of the false gods of the nations able to make rain come? are the heavens able to give showers? are you not he, O Lord our God? so we will go on waiting for you, for you have done all these things.

Philippians 3 / Basic English

1. For the rest, my brothers, be glad in the Lord. Writing the same things to you is no trouble to me, and for you it is safe.
2. Be on the watch against dogs, against the workers of evil, against those of the circumcision:
3. For we are the circumcision, who give worship to God and have glory in Jesus Christ, and have no faith in the flesh:
4. Even though I myself might have faith in the flesh: if any other man has reason to have faith in the flesh, I have more:
5. Being given circumcision on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in relation to the law, a Pharisee:
6. In bitter hate I was cruel to the church; I kept all the righteousness of the law to the last detail.
7. But those things which were profit to me, I gave up for Christ.
8. Yes truly, and I am ready to give up all things for the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, which is more than all: for whom I have undergone the loss of all things, and to me they are less than nothing, so that I may have Christ as my reward,
9. And be seen in him, not having my righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
10. That I may have knowledge of him, and of the power of his coming back from the dead, and a part with him in his pains, becoming like him in his death;
11. If in any way I may have the reward of life from the dead.
12. Not as if I had even now got the reward or been made complete: but I go on in the hope that I may come to the knowledge of that for which I was made the servant of Christ Jesus.
13. Brothers, it is clear to me that I have not come to that knowledge; but one thing I do, letting go those things which are past, and stretching out to the things which are before,
14. I go forward to the mark, even the reward of the high purpose of God in Christ Jesus.
15. Then let us all, who have come to full growth, be of this mind: and if in anything you are of a different mind, even this will God make clear to you:
16. Only, as far as we have got, let us be guided by the same rule.
17. Brothers, take me as your example, and take note of those who are walking after the example we have given.
18. For there are those, of whom I have given you word before, and do so now with sorrow, who are haters of the cross of Christ;
19. Whose end is destruction, whose god is the stomach, and whose glory is in their shame, whose minds are fixed on the things of the earth.
20. For our country is in heaven; from where the Saviour for whom we are waiting will come, even the Lord Jesus Christ:
21. By whom this poor body of ours will be changed into the image of the body of his glory, in the measure of the working by which he is able to put all things under himself.