Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Hosea 6 / Basic English

1. Come, let us go back to the Lord; for he has given us wounds and he will make us well; he has given blows and he will give help.
2. After two days he will give us life, and on the third day he will make us get up, and we will be living before him.
3. And let us have knowledge, let us go after the knowledge of the Lord; his going out is certain as the dawn, his decisions go out like the light; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.
4. O Ephraim, what am I to do to you? O Judah, what am I to do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes early away.
5. So I have had it cut in stones; I gave them teaching by the words of my mouth;
6. Because my desire is for mercy and not offerings; for the knowledge of God more than for burned offerings.
7. But like a man, they have gone against the agreement; there they were false to me.
8. Gilead is a town of evil-doers, marked with blood.
9. And like a band of thieves waiting for a man, so are the priests watching secretly the way of those going quickly to Shechem, for they are working with an evil design.
10. In Israel I have seen a very evil thing; there false ways are seen in Ephraim, Israel is unclean;
11. And Judah has put up disgusting images for himself.

Hosea 7 / Basic English

1. When my desire was for the fate of my people to be changed and to make Israel well, then the sin of Ephraim was made clear, and the evil-doing of Samaria; for their ways are false, and the thief comes into the house, while the band of outlaws takes property by force in the streets.
2. And they do not say to themselves that I keep in mind all their sin; now their evil acts come round them on every side; they are before my face.
3. In their sin they make a king for themselves, and rulers in their deceit.
4. They are all untrue; they are like a burning oven; the bread-maker does not make up the fire from the time when the paste is mixed till it is leavened.
5. On the day of our king, the rulers made him ill with the heat of wine; his hand was stretched out with the men of pride.
6. For they have made their hearts ready like an oven, while they are waiting secretly; their wrath is sleeping all night; in the morning it is burning like a flaming fire.
7. They are all heated like an oven, and they put an end to their judges; all their kings have been made low; not one among them makes prayer to me.
8. Ephraim is mixed with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9. Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.
10. And the pride of Israel gives an answer to his face; but for all this, they have not gone back to the Lord their God, or made search for him.
11. And Ephraim is like a foolish dove, without wisdom; they send out their cry to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
12. When they go, my net will be stretched out over them; I will take them like the birds of heaven, I will give them punishment, I will take them away in the net for their sin.
13. May trouble be theirs! for they have gone far away from me; and destruction, for they have been sinning against me; I was ready to be their saviour, but they said false words against me.
14. And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.
15. Though I have given training and strength to their arms, they have evil designs against me.
16. They have gone to what is of no value; they are like a false bow; their captains will come to destruction by the sword, and their ruler by my wrath; for this, the land of Egypt will make sport of them.

Hosea 8 / Basic English

1. Put the horn to your mouth. He comes like an eagle against the house of the Lord; because they have gone against my agreement, they have not kept my law.
2. They will send up to me a cry for help: We, Israel, have knowledge of you, O God of Israel.
3. Israel has given up what is good; his haters will go after him.
4. They have put up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, but I had no knowledge of it; they have made images of silver and gold, so that they may be cut off.
5. I will have nothing to do with your young ox, O Samaria; my wrath is burning against them; how long will it be before the children of Israel make themselves clean?
6. The workman made it, it is no god; the ox of Samaria will be broken into bits.
7. For they have been planting the wind, and their fruit will be the storm; his grain has no stem, it will give no meal, and if it does, a strange nation will take it.
8. Israel has come to destruction; now they are among the nations like a cup in which there is no pleasure.
9. For they have gone up to Assyria like an ass going by himself; Ephraim has given money to get lovers.
10. But though they give money to the nations for help, still I will send them in all directions; and in a short time they will be without a king and rulers.
11. Because Ephraim has been increasing altars for sin, altars have become a cause of sin to him.
12. Though I put my law in writing for him in ten thousand rules, they are to him as a strange thing.
13. He gives the offerings of his lovers, and takes the flesh for food; but the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep in mind their evil-doing and give them the punishment of their sins; they will go back to Egypt.
14. For Israel has no memory of his Maker, and has put up the houses of kings; and Judah has made great the number of his walled towns. But I will send a fire on his towns and put an end to his great houses.

1 John 1 / Basic English

1. That which was from the first, which has come to our ears, and which we have seen with our eyes, looking on it and touching it with our hands, about the Word of life
2. (And the life was made clear to us, and we have seen it and are witnessing to it and giving you word of that eternal life which was with the Father and was seen by us);
3. We give you word of all we have seen and everything which has come to our ears, so that you may be united with us; and we are united with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ:
4. And we are writing these things to you so that our joy may be made complete.
5. This is the word which came to us from him and which we give to you, that God is light and in him there is nothing dark.
6. If we say we are joined to him, and are walking still in the dark, our words are false and our acts are untrue:
7. But if we are walking in the light, as he is in the light, we are all united with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son makes us clean from all sin.
8. If we say that we have no sin, we are false to ourselves and there is nothing true in us.
9. If we say openly that we have done wrong, he is upright and true to his word, giving us forgiveness of sins and making us clean from all evil.
10. If we say that we have no sin, we make him false and his word is not in us.

1 John 2 / Basic English

1. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may be without sin. And if any man is a sinner, we have a friend and helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, the upright one:
2. He is the offering for our sins; and not for ours only, but for all the world.
3. And by this we may be certain that we have knowledge of him, if we keep his laws.
4. The man who says, I have knowledge of him, and does not keep his laws, is false, and there is nothing true in him:
5. But in every man who keeps his word, the love of God is made complete. By this we may be certain that we are in him:
6. He who says that he is living in him, will do as he did.
7. My loved ones, I do not give you a new law, but an old law which you had from the first; this old law is the word which came to your ears.
8. Again, I give you a new law, which is true in him and in you; for the night is near its end and the true light is even now shining out.
9. He who says that he is in the light, and has hate in his heart for his brother, is still in the dark.
10. He who has love for his brother is in the light, and there is no cause of error in him.
11. But he who has hate for his brother is in the dark, walking in the dark with no knowledge of where he is going, unable to see because of the dark.
12. I am writing to you, my children, because you have forgiveness of sins through his name.
13. I am writing to you, fathers, because you have knowledge of him who was from the first. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the Evil One. I have sent a letter to you, children, because you have knowledge of the Father.
14. I have sent a letter to you, fathers, because you have knowledge of him who was from the first. I have sent a letter to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God is in you, and because you have overcome the Evil One.
15. Have no love for the world or for the things which are in the world. If any man has love for the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16. Because everything in the world, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world.
17. And the world and its desires is coming to an end: but he who does God's pleasure is living for ever.
18. Little children, it is the last hour; and as you were given word that the Antichrist would come, so now a number of Antichrists have come to you; and by this we are certain that it is the last hour.
19. They went out from us but they were not of us; if they had been of us they would still be with us: but they went out from us so that it might be made clear that they were not of us.
20. And you have the Spirit from the Holy One and you all have knowledge.
21. I have not sent you this letter because you have no knowledge of what is true, but because you have knowledge, and because that which is false has nothing in common with that which is true.
22. Who is false but he who says that Jesus is not the Christ? He is the Antichrist who has no belief in the Father or the Son.
23. He who has no belief in the Son has not the Father: he who makes clear his belief in the Son has the Father.
24. But as for you, keep in your hearts the things which were made clear to you from the first. If you keep these things in your hearts you will be kept in the Father and the Son.
25. And this is the hope which he gave you, even eternal life.
26. I am writing these things to you about those whose purpose is that you may be turned out of the true way.
27. As for you, the Spirit which he gave you is still in you, and you have no need of any teacher; but as his Spirit gives you teaching about all things, and is true and not false, so keep your hearts in him, through the teaching which he has given you.
28. And now, my children, keep your hearts in him; so that at his revelation, we may have no fear or shame before him at his coming.
29. If you have knowledge that he is upright, it is clear to you that everyone who does righteousness is his offspring.