Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Leviticus 23 / Basic English

1. And the Lord said to Moses,
2. Say to the children of Israel, These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, which you will keep for holy meetings: these are my feasts.
3. On six days work may be done; but the seventh day is a special day of rest, a time for worship; you may do no sort of work: it is a Sabbath to the Lord wherever you may be living.
4. These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, the holy days of worship which you will keep at their regular times.
5. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at nightfall, is the Lord's Passover;
6. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days let your food be unleavened bread.
7. On the first day you will have a holy meeting; you may do no sort of field-work.
8. And every day for seven days you will give a burned offering to the Lord; and on the seventh day there will be a holy meeting; you may do no field-work.
9. And the Lord said to Moses,
10. Say to the children of Israel, When you have come to the land which I will give you, and have got in the grain from its fields, take some of the first-fruits of the grain to the priest;
11. And let the grain be waved before the Lord, so that you may be pleasing to him; on the day after the Sabbath let it be waved by the priest.
12. And on the day of the waving of the grain, you are to give a male lamb of the first year, without any mark, for a burned offering to the Lord.
13. And let the meal offering with it be two tenth parts of an ephah of the best meal mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord for a sweet smell; and the drink offering with it is to be of wine, the fourth part of a hin.
14. And you may take no bread or dry grain or new grain for food till the very day on which you have given the offering for your God: this is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.
15. And let seven full weeks be numbered from the day after the Sabbath, the day when you give the grain for the wave offering;
16. Let fifty days be numbered, to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you are to give a new meal offering to the Lord.
17. Take from your houses two cakes of bread, made of a fifth part of an ephah of the best meal, cooked with leaven, to be waved for first-fruits to the Lord.
18. And with the bread, take seven lambs of the first year, without any marks, and one ox and two male sheep, to be a burned offering to the Lord, with their meal offering and their drink offerings, an offering of a sweet smell made by fire to the Lord.
19. And you are to give one male goat for a sin-offering and two male lambs of the first year for peace-offerings.
20. And these will be waved by the priest, with the bread of the first-fruits, for a wave offering to the Lord, with the two lambs: they will be holy to the Lord for the priest.
21. And on the same day, let it be given out that there will be a holy meeting for you: you may do no field-work on that day: it is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.
22. And when you get in the grain from your land, do not let all the grain at the edges of the field be cut, and do not take up the grain which has been dropped in the field; let that be for the poor, and for the man from another country: I am the Lord your God.
23. And the Lord said to Moses,
24. Say to the children of Israel, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, let there be a special day of rest for you, a day of memory, marked by the blowing of horns, a meeting for worship.
25. Do no field-work and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.
26. And the Lord said to Moses,
27. The tenth day of this seventh month is the day for the taking away of sin; let it be a holy day of worship; you are to keep from pleasure, and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.
28. And on that day you may do no sort of work, for it is a day of taking away sin, to make you clean before the Lord your God.
29. For any person, whoever he may be, who takes his pleasure on that day will be cut off from his people.
30. And if any person, whoever he may be, on that day does any sort of work, I will send destruction on him from among his people.
31. You may not do any sort of work: this is an order for ever through all your generations wherever you may be living.
32. Let this be a Sabbath of special rest to you, and keep yourselves from all pleasure; on the ninth day of the month at nightfall from evening to evening, let this Sabbath be kept.
33. And the Lord said to Moses,
34. Say to the children of Israel, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month let the feast of tents be kept to the Lord for seven days.
35. On the first day there will be a holy meeting: do no field-work.
36. Every day for seven days give an offering made by fire to the Lord; and on the eighth day there is to be a holy meeting, when you are to give an offering made by fire to the Lord; this is a special holy day: you may do no field-work on that day.
37. These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, to be kept by you as holy days of worship, for making an offering by fire to the Lord; a burned offering, a meal offering, an offering of beasts, and drink offerings; every one on its special day;
38. In addition to the Sabbaths of the Lord, and in addition to the things you give and the oaths you make and the free offerings to the Lord.
39. But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have got in all the fruits of the land, you will keep the feast of the Lord for seven days: the first day will be a Sabbath, and the eighth day the same.
40. On the first day, take the fruit of fair trees, branches of palm-trees, and branches of thick trees and trees from the riverside, and be glad before the Lord for seven days.
41. And let this feast be kept before the Lord for seven days in the year: it is a rule for ever from generation to generation; in the seventh month let it be kept.
42. For seven days you will be living in tents; all those who are Israelites by birth are to make tents their living-places:
43. So that future generations may keep in mind how I gave the children of Israel tents as their living-places when I took them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
44. And Moses made clear to the children of Israel the orders about the fixed feasts of the Lord.

Mark 7 / Basic English

1. And there came together to him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem,
2. And had seen that some of his disciples took their bread with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
3. Now the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not take food without washing their hands with care, keeping the old rule which has been handed down to them:
4. And when they come from the market-place, they take no food till their hands are washed; and a number of other orders there are, which have been handed down to them to keep--washings of cups and pots and brass vessels.
5. And the Pharisees and the scribes put the question to him, Why do your disciples not keep the rules of the fathers, but take their bread with unwashed hands?
6. And he said, Well did Isaiah say of you, you false ones: These people give me honour with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
7. But their worship is to no purpose, while they give as their teaching the rules of men.
8. For, turning away from the law of God, you keep the rules of men.
9. And he said to them, Truly you put on one side the law of God, so that you may keep the rules which have been handed down to you.
10. For Moses said, Give honour to your father and mother, and, He who says evil of father or mother, let him have the punishment of death:
11. But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, That by which you might have had profit from me is Corban, that is to say, Given to God,
12. You no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother;
13. Making the word of God of no effect by your rule, which you have given: and a number of other such things you do.
14. And turning to the people again, he said to them, Give ear to me all of you, and let my words be clear to you:
15. There is nothing outside the man which, going into him, is able to make him unclean: but the things which come out of the man are those which make the man unclean.
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17. And when he had gone into the house away from all the people, his disciples put questions to him about the saying.
18. And he said to them, Have even you so little wisdom? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside is not able to make him unclean,
19. Because it goes not into the heart but into the stomach, and goes out with the waste? He said this, making all food clean.
20. And he said, That which comes out of the man, that makes the man unclean.
21. Because from inside, from the heart of men, come evil thoughts and unclean pleasures,
22. The taking of goods and of life, broken faith between husband and wife, the desire of wealth, wrongdoing, deceit, sins of the flesh, an evil eye, angry words, pride, foolish acts:
23. All these evil things come from inside, and make the man unclean.
24. And he went away from there to the country of Tyre and Sidon. And he went into a house, desiring that no man might have knowledge of it: and he was not able to keep it secret.
25. But a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having had news of him, came straight away and went down at his feet.
26. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth: and she made a request to him that he would send the evil spirit out of her daughter.
27. And he said to her, Let the children first have their food: for it is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.
28. But she said to him in answer, Yes, Lord: even the dogs under the table take the bits dropped by the children.
29. And he said to her, For this saying go your way; the evil spirit has gone out of your daughter.
30. And she went away to her house, and saw the child on the bed, and the evil spirit gone out.
31. And again he went out from Tyre, and came through Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the country of Decapolis.
32. And they came to him with one who had no power of hearing and had trouble in talking; and they made a request to him to put his hands on him.
33. And he took him on one side from the people privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he put water from his mouth on the man's tongue with his finger;
34. And looking up to heaven, he took a deep breath, and said to him, Ephphatha, that is, Be open.
35. And his ears became open, and the band of his tongue was made loose, and his words became clear.
36. And he gave them orders not to give news of it to anyone; but the more he made this request, so much the more they made it public.
37. And they were overcome with wonder, saying, He has done all things well: he even gives back the power of hearing and the power of talking to those who have been without them.