Bible Versions

EasyEnglish Bible 2024

The purpose of the EasyEnglish Bible is to make the Bible as clear as possible in simple English. We have used a basic vocabulary of 1200 well-known English words. It is a very good Bible for anyone who is learning English or speaks English as a foreign language.

EasyEnglish Website

To help you even more, the EasyEnglish Bible website – www.easyenglish.bible – has Commentaries and Bible Studies to help you understand the message of the Bible and apply it to your life.

Translation Principles

To make the Bible as easy as possible to understand, we have used:

Short sentences
Short paragraphs
Simple grammar

We have avoided things that can be hard to understand, so we have used:

No passive verbs
No idioms
No split infinitives
No rhetorical questions

The EasyEnglish Bible is a “meaning-for-meaning” translation not a “word-for-word” translation.

It expresses the meaning of the original message in the most clear, accurate and natural way possible in simple English.
It changes the order of words if that makes the meaning clearer in English.
It translates the meaning of idioms rather than the literal words.
It uses British spelling, grammar and punctuation.

These translation principles have been developed by Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) and SIL.

EasyEnglish Translation Team

The EasyEnglish Bible has been translated by MissionAssist, which is a Christian charity based in the United Kingdom. MissionAssist is part of the Wycliffe Global Alliance (WGA) and a member of Global Connections.

The EasyEnglish Bible translation team includes:

Linguistic Checkers - People who check the linguistic consistency of the work. Our linguistic checkers normally have a degree in Linguistics or English (or similar) and a TEFL qualification.
Theological Checkers - People who check the theological accuracy of the work. Our theological checkers have a degree in theology (or a similar qualification).
Style Checkers - People who check drafts and final output for accuracy, consistency and conformance to EasyEnglish principles.

The Base Text

We have used a range of English Bible translations as a base. Where English versions have a different understanding of the original text, we have referred to the Hebrew or Greek text, using the texts published and updated by United Bible Societies (UBS):

Old Testament: Biblia Hebraica “Masoretic Text”
New Testament: The Nestle-Aland “Novum Testamentum Graece”

We also use the resources provided by Wycliffe Bible Translators to help translators and checkers understand the issues involved in translating the original texts.