Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

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reading for the day 30/12/2024 ; previous day - next day ; back to index ;

Zechariah 11 / Basic English



1. Let your doors be open, O Lebanon, so that fire may be burning among your cedars.
2. Give a cry of grief, O fir-tree, for the fall of the cedar, because the great ones have been made low: give cries of grief, O you oaks of Bashan, for the strong trees of the wood have come down.
3. The sound of the crying of the keepers of the flock! for their glory is made waste: the sound of the loud crying of the young lions! for the pride of Jordan is made waste.
4. This is what the Lord my God has said: Take care of the flock of death;
5. Whose owners put them to death and have no sense of sin; and those who get a price for them say, May the Lord be praised for I have much wealth: and the keepers of the flock have no pity for them.
6. For I will have no more pity for the people of the land, says the Lord; but I will give up everyone into his neighbour's hand and into the hand of his king: and they will make the land waste, and I will not keep them safe from their hands.
7. So I took care of the flock of death, for those who made profit out of the flock; and I took for myself two rods, naming one Beautiful, and the other Bands; and I took care of the flock.
8. And in one month I put an end to the three keepers of the flock; for my soul was tired of them, and their souls were disgusted with me.
9. And I said, I will not take care of you: If death comes to any, let death be its fate; if any is cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest take one another's flesh for food.
10. And I took my rod Beautiful, cutting it in two, so that the Lord's agreement, which he had made with all the peoples, might be broken.
11. And it was broken on that day: and the sheep-traders, who were watching me, were certain that it was the word of the Lord.
12. And I said to them, If it seems good to you, give me my payment; and if not, do not give it. So they gave me my payment by weight, thirty shekels of silver.
13. And the Lord said to me, Put it into the store-house, the price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty shekels of silver and put them into the store-house in the house of the Lord.
14. Then I took my other rod, the one named Bands, cutting it in two, so that the relation of brothers between Judah and Israel might be broken.
15. And the Lord said to me, Take again the instruments of a foolish keeper of sheep.
16. For see, I will put a sheep-keeper over the land, who will have no care for that which is cut off, and will not go in search of the wanderers, or make well what is broken, and he will not give food to that which is ill, but he will take for his food the flesh of the fat, and let their feet be broken.
17. A curse on the foolish keeper who goes away from the flock! the sword will be on his arm and on his right eye: his arm will become quite dry and his eye will be made completely dark.

Zechariah 12 / Basic English



1. The word of the Lord about Israel. The Lord by whom the heavens are stretched out and the bases of the earth put in place, and the spirit of man formed inside him, has said:
2. See, I will make Jerusalem a cup of shaking fear to all the peoples round about, when Jerusalem is shut in.
3. And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone of great weight for all the peoples; all those who take it up will be badly wounded; and all the nations of the earth will come together against it.
4. In that day, says the Lord, I will put fear into every horse and make every horseman go off his head: and my eyes will be open on the people of Judah, and I will make every horse of the peoples blind.
5. And the families of Judah will say in their hearts, The people of Jerusalem have their strength in the Lord of armies, their God.
6. In that day I will make the families of Judah like a pot with fire in it among trees, and like a flaming stick among cut grain; they will send destruction on all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem will be living again in the place which is hers, that is, in Jerusalem.
7. And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the family of David and the glory of the people of Jerusalem may not be greater than that of Judah.
8. In that day the Lord will be a cover over the people of Jerusalem; and he who is feeble among them in that day will be as strong as David, and the family of David will be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
9. And it will come about on that day that I will take in hand the destruction of all the nations who come against Jerusalem.
10. And I will send down on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer; and their eyes will be turned to the one who was wounded by their hands: and they will be weeping for him as for an only son, and their grief for him will be bitter, like the grief of one sorrowing for his oldest son.
11. In that day there will be a great weeping in Jerusalem, like the weeping of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
12. And the land will give itself to weeping, every family separately; the family of David by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Nathan by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
13. The family of Levi by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
14. And all the other families by themselves, and their wives by themselves.

Zechariah 13 / Basic English



1. In that day there will be a fountain open to the family of David and to the people of Jerusalem, for sin and for that which is unclean.
2. And it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that I will have the names of the images cut off out of the land, and there will be no more memory of them: and I will send all the prophets and the unclean spirit away from the land.
3. And if anyone goes on acting as a prophet, then his father and his mother who gave him life will say to him, You may not go on living, for you are saying what is false in the name of the Lord; and his father and his mother will put a sword through him when he does so.
4. And it will come about in that day that the prophets will be shamed, every man on account of his vision, when he is talking as a prophet; and they will not put on a robe of hair for purposes of deceit:
5. But he will say, I am no prophet, but a worker on the land; for I have been an owner of land from the time when I was young.
6. And if anyone says to him, What are these wounds between your hands? then he will say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
7. Awake! O sword, against the keeper of my flock, and against him who is with me, says the Lord of armies: put to death the keeper of the sheep, and the sheep will go in flight: and my hand will be turned against the little ones.
8. And it will come about that in all the land, says the Lord, two parts of it will be cut off and come to an end; but the third will be still living there.
9. And I will make the third part go through the fire, cleaning them as silver is made clean, and testing them as gold is tested: and they will make their prayer to me and I will give them an answer: I will say, It is my people; and they will say, The Lord is my God.

Zechariah 14 / Basic English



1. See, a day of the Lord is coming when they will make division of your goods taken by force before your eyes.
2. For I will get all the nations together to make war against Jerusalem; and the town will be overcome, and the goods taken from the houses, and the women taken by force: and half the town will go away as prisoners, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the town.
3. Then the Lord will go out and make war against those nations, as he did in the day of the fight.
4. And in that day his feet will be on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be parted in the middle to the east and to the west, forming a very great valley; and half the mountain will be moved to the north and half of it to the south.
5. And the valley will be stopped ... and you will go in flight as you went in flight from the earth-shock in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah: and the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.
6. And in that day there will be no heat or cold or ice;
7. And it will be unbroken day, such as the Lord has knowledge of, without change of day and night, and even at nightfall it will be light.
8. And on that day living waters will go out from Jerusalem; half of them flowing to the sea on the east and half to the sea on the west: in summer and in winter it will be so.
9. And the Lord will be King over all the earth: in that day there will be one Lord and his name one.
10. And all the land will become like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she will be lifted up and be living in her place; from the doorway of Benjamin to the place of the first doorway, to the doorway of the angle, and from the tower of Hananel to the king's wine-crushing places, men will be living in her.
11. And there will be no more curse; but Jerusalem will be living without fear of danger.
12. And this will be the disease which the Lord will send on all the peoples which have been warring against Jerusalem: their flesh will be wasted away while they are on their feet, their eyes will be wasted in their heads and their tongues in their mouths.
13. And it will be on that day that a great fear will be sent among them from the Lord; and everyone will take his neighbour's hand, and every man's hand will be lifted against his neighbour's.
14. And even Judah will be fighting against Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the nations round about will be massed together, a great store of gold and silver and clothing.
15. And the horses and the transport beasts, the camels and the asses and all the beasts in those tents will be attacked by the same disease.
16. And it will come about that everyone who is still living, of all those nations who came against Jerusalem, will go up from year to year to give worship to the King, the Lord of armies, and to keep the feast of tents.
17. And it will be that if any one of all the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to give worship to the King, the Lord of armies, on them there will be no rain.
18. And if the family of Egypt does not go up or come there, they will be attacked by the disease which the Lord will send on the nations:
19. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to keep the feast of tents.
20. On that day all the bells of the horses will be holy to the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house will be like the basins before the altar.
21. And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of armies: and all those who make offerings will come and take them for boiling their offerings: in that day there will be no more traders in the house of the Lord of armies.

Revelation 20 / Basic English



1. And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the great deep and a great chain in his hand.
2. And he took the dragon, the old snake, which is the Evil One and Satan, and put chains on him for a thousand years,
3. And put him into the great deep, and it was shut and locked over him, so that he might put the nations in error no longer, till the thousand years were ended: after this he will be let loose for a little time.
4. And I saw high seats, and they were seated on them, and the right of judging was given to them: and I saw the souls of those who were put to death for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and those who did not give worship to the beast, or to his image, and had not his mark on their brows or on their hands; and they were living and ruling with Christ a thousand years.
5. The rest of the dead did not come to life again till the thousand years were ended. This is the first coming back from the dead.
6. Happy and holy is he who has a part in this first coming: over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will be ruling with him a thousand years.
7. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be let loose out of his prison,
8. And will go out to put in error the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to get them together to the war, the number of whom is like the sands of the sea.
9. And they went up over the face of the earth, and made a circle about the tents of the saints, and the well loved town: and fire came down out of heaven for their destruction.
10. And the Evil One who put them in error was sent down into the sea of ever-burning fire, where the beast and the false prophet are, and their punishment will go on day and night for ever and ever.
11. And I saw a great white seat, and him who was seated on it, before whose face the earth and the heaven went in flight; and there was no place for them.
12. And I saw the dead, great and small, taking their places before the high seat; and the books were open, and another book was open, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by the things which were in the books, even by their works.
13. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man by his works.
14. And death and Hell were put into the sea of fire. This is the second death, even the sea of fire.
15. And if anyone's name was not in the book of life, he went down into the sea of fire.

Revelation 21 / Basic English



1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were gone; and there was no more sea.
2. And I saw the holy town, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, like a bride made beautiful for her husband.
3. And there came to my ears a great voice out of the high seat, saying, See, the Tent of God is with men, and he will make his living-place with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God.
4. And he will put an end to all their weeping; and there will be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain; for the first things have come to an end.
5. And he who is seated on the high seat said, See, I make all things new. And he said, Put it in the book; for these words are certain and true.
6. And he said to me, It is done. I am the First and the Last, the start and the end. I will freely give of the fountain of the water of life to him who is in need.
7. He who overcomes will have these things for his heritage; and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
8. But those who are full of fear and without faith, the unclean and takers of life, those who do the sins of the flesh, and those who make use of evil powers or who give worship to images, and all those who are false, will have their part in the sea of ever-burning fire which is the second death.
9. And one of the seven angels who had the seven vessels in which were the seven last punishments, came and said to me, Come here, and see the bride, the Lamb's wife.
10. And he took me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and let me see the holy town Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
11. Having the glory of God: and her light was like a stone of great price, a jasper stone, clear as glass:
12. She had a wall great and high, with twelve doors, and at the doors twelve angels; and names on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.
13. And on the east were three doors; and on the north three doors; and on the south three doors; and on the west three doors.
14. And the wall of the town had twelve bases, and on them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
15. And he who was talking with me had a gold measuring-rod to take the measure of the town, and of its doors, and its wall.
16. And the town is square, as wide as it is long; and he took the measure of the town with the rod, one thousand and five hundred miles: it is equally long and wide and high.
17. And he took the measure of its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits, after the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.
18. And the building of its wall was of jasper, and the town was clear gold, clear as glass.
19. The bases of the wall of the town had ornaments of all sorts of beautiful stones. The first base was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
20. The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst.
21. And the twelve doors were twelve pearls; every door was made of one pearl; and the street of the town was clear gold, as clear as glass.
22. And I saw no Temple there; because the Lord God, the Ruler of all, and the Lamb are its Temple.
23. And the town has no need of the sun, or of the moon, to give it light: for the glory of God did make it light, and the light of it is the Lamb.
24. And the nations will go in its light: and the kings of the earth will take their glory into it.
25. And the doors of it will never be shut by day (for there is no night there):
26. And the glory and honour of the nations will come into it:
27. And nothing unclean may come into it, or anyone whose works are cursed or false; but only those whose names are in the Lamb's book of life.