Basic English Version : Read the Bible in 1 Year

Deuteronomy 25 / Basic English

1. If there is an argument between men and they go to law with one another, let the judges give their decision for the upright, and against the wrongdoer.
2. And if the wrongdoer is to undergo punishment by whipping, the judge will give orders for him to go down on his face and be whipped before him, the number of the blows being in relation to his crime.
3. He may be given forty blows, not more; for if more are given, your brother may be shamed before you.
4. Do not keep the ox from taking the grain when he is crushing it.
5. If brothers are living together and one of them, at his death, has no son, the wife of the dead man is not to be married outside the family to another man: let her husband's brother go in to her and make her his wife, doing as it is right for a brother-in-law to do.
6. Then the first male child she has will take the rights of the brother who is dead, so that his name may not come to an end in Israel.
7. But if the man says he will not take his brother's wife, then let the wife go to the responsible men of the town, and say, My husband's brother will not keep his brother's name living in Israel; he will not do what it is right for a husband's brother to do.
8. Then the responsible men of the town will send for the man, and have talk with him: and if he still says, I will not take her;
9. Then his brother's wife is to come to him, before the responsible men of the town, and take his shoe off his foot, and put shame on him, and say, So let it be done to the man who will not take care of his brother's name.
10. And his family will be named in Israel, The house of him whose shoe has been taken off.
11. If two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them, coming to the help of her husband, takes the other by the private parts;
12. Her hand is to be cut off; have no pity on her.
13. Do not have in your bag different weights, a great and a small;
14. Or in your house different measures, a great and a small.
15. But have a true weight and a true measure: so that your life may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
16. For all who do such things, and all whose ways are not upright, are disgusting to the Lord your God.
17. Keep in mind what Amalek did to you on your way from Egypt;
18. How, meeting you on the way, he made an attack on you when you were tired and without strength, cutting off all the feeble ones at the end of your line; and the fear of God was not in him.
19. So when the Lord your God has given you rest from all who are against you on every side, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, see to it that the memory of Amalek is cut off from the earth; keep this in mind.

Deuteronomy 26 / Basic English

1. Now when you have come into the land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage, and you have made it yours and are living in it;
2. You are to take a part of the first-fruits of the earth, which you get from the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket, and go to the place marked out by the Lord your God, as the resting-place of his name.
3. And you are to come to him who is priest at that time, and say to him, I give witness today before the Lord your God, that I have come into the land which the Lord made an oath to our fathers to give us.
4. Then the priest will take the basket from your hand and put it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.
5. And these are the words which you will say before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down with a small number of people into Egypt; there he became a great and strong nation:
6. And the Egyptians were cruel to us, crushing us under a hard yoke:
7. And our cry went up to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord's ear was open to the voice of our cry, and his eyes took note of our grief and the crushing weight of our work:
8. And the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, with works of power and signs and wonders:
9. And he has been our guide to this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10. So now, I have come here with the first of the fruits of the earth which you, O Lord, have given me. Then you will put it down before the Lord your God and give him worship:
11. And you will have joy in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you and to your family; and the Levite, and the man from a strange land who is with you, will take part in your joy.
12. When you have taken out a tenth from the tenth of all your produce in the third year, which is the year when this has to be done, give it to the Levite, and the man from a strange land, and the child without a father, and the widow, so that they may have food in your towns and be full;
13. And say before the Lord your God, I have taken all the holy things out of my house and have given them to the Levite, and the man from a strange land, and him who has no father, and the widow, as you have given me orders: I have kept in mind all your orders, in nothing have I gone against them:
14. No part of these things has been used for food in a time of weeping, or put away when I was unclean, or given for the dead: I have given ear to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done all you have given me orders to do.
15. So, looking down from your holy place in heaven, send your blessing on your people Israel and on the land which you have given us, as you said in your oath to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.
16. Today the Lord your God gives you orders to keep all these laws and decisions: so then keep and do them with all your heart and all your soul.
17. Today you have given witness that the Lord is your God, and that you will go in his ways and keep his laws and his orders and his decisions and give ear to his voice:
18. And the Lord has made it clear this day that you are a special people to him, as he gave you his word; and that you are to keep all his orders;
19. And that he will make you high over all the nations he has made, in praise, in name, and in honour, and that you are to be a holy people to the Lord your God as he has said.

Deuteronomy 27 / Basic English

1. Then Moses and the responsible men of Israel gave the people these orders: Keep all the orders which I have given you this day;
2. And on the day when you go over Jordan into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, put up great stones, coating them with building-paste,
3. And writing on them all the words of this law, after you have gone over; so that you may take the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said.
4. And when you have gone over Jordan, you are to put up these stones, as I have said to you today, in Mount Ebal, and have them coated with building-paste.
5. There you are to make an altar to the Lord your God, of stones on which no iron instrument has been used.
6. You are to make the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones; offering on it burned offerings to the Lord your God:
7. And you are to make your peace-offerings, feasting there with joy before the Lord your God.
8. And put on the stones all the words of this law, writing them very clearly.
9. Then Moses and the priests, the Levites, said to all Israel, Be quiet and give ear, O Israel; today you have become the people of the Lord your God.
10. For this cause you are to give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and do his orders and his laws which I give you this day.
11. That same day Moses said to the people,
12. These are to take their places on Mount Gerizim for blessing the people when you have gone over Jordan: Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin;
13. And these are to be on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
14. Then the Levites are to say in a loud voice to all the men of Israel,
15. Cursed is the man who makes any image of wood or stone or metal, disgusting to the Lord, the work of man's hands, and puts it up in secret. And let all the people say, So be it.
16. Cursed is he who does not give honour to his father or mother. And let all the people say, So be it.
17. Cursed is he who takes his neighbour's landmark from its place. And let all the people say, So be it.
18. Cursed is he by whom the blind are turned out of the way. And let all the people say, So be it.
19. Cursed is he who gives a wrong decision in the cause of a man from a strange land, or of one without a father, or of a widow. And let all the people say, So be it.
20. Cursed is he who has sex relations with his father's wife, for he has put shame on his father. And let all the people say, So be it.
21. Cursed is he who has sex relations with any sort of beast. And let all the people say, So be it.
22. Cursed is he who has sex relations with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother. And let all the people say, So be it.
23. Cursed is he who has sex relations with his mother-in-law. And let all the people say, So be it.
24. Cursed is he who takes his neighbour's life secretly. And let all the people say, So be it.
25. Cursed is he who for a reward puts to death one who has done no wrong. And let all the people say, So be it.
26. Cursed is he who does not take this law to heart to do it. And let all the people say, So be it.

Psalms 95 / Basic English

1. O come, let us make songs to the Lord; sending up glad voices to the Rock of our salvation.
2. Let us come before his face with praises; and make melody with holy songs.
3. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King over all gods.
4. The deep places of the earth are in his hand; and the tops of the mountains are his.
5. The sea is his, and he made it; and the dry land was formed by his hands.
6. O come, let us give worship, falling down on our knees before the Lord our Maker.
7. For he is our God; and we are the people to whom he gives food, and the sheep of his flock. Today, if you would only give ear to his voice!
8. Let not your hearts be hard, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the waste land;
9. When your fathers put me to the test and saw my power and my work.
10. For forty years I was angry with this generation, and said, They are a people whose hearts are turned away from me, for they have no knowledge of my ways;
11. And I made an oath in my wrath, that they might not come into my place of rest.

Psalms 96 / Basic English

1. O make a new song to the Lord; let all the earth make melody to the Lord.
2. Make songs to the Lord, blessing his name; give the good news of his salvation day by day.
3. Make clear his glory to the nations, and his wonders to all the peoples.
4. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised; he is more to be feared than all other gods.
5. For all the gods of the nations are false gods; but the Lord made the heavens.
6. Honour and glory are before him: strong and fair is his holy place.
7. Give to the Lord, O you families of the peoples, give to the Lord glory and strength.
8. Give to the Lord the glory of his name; take with you an offering and come into his house.
9. O give worship to the Lord in holy robes; be in fear before him, all the earth.
10. Say among the nations, The Lord is King; yes, the world is ordered so that it may not be moved; he will be an upright judge of the peoples.
11. Let the heavens have joy and the earth be glad; let the sea be thundering with all its waters;
12. Let the field be glad, and everything which is in it; yes, let all the trees of the wood be sounding with joy,
13. Before the Lord, for he is come; he is come to be the judge of the earth; the earth will be judged in righteousness, and the peoples with unchanging faith.