The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language

Eugene Peterson's The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language is a welcome way to read and reread one of the best-loved books of all time. It's directly translated from the Greek and Hebrew texts and is intentionally designed to be easy to read, rather than as a study Bible. Each of the 66 books of the Bible includes an introduction by Peterson, and there are no verse numbers to interrupt the flow of the passages.

As an illustration from the opening verses of the Book of Genesis:

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth--all you see; all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. -- Genesis 1:1

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. -- John 3:16

Eugene Peterson includes an extensive explanation of how this translation differs from previous ones, with overviews of the individual books of the New Testament, placing them in their historical context. At times, he might go too far, including jarring anachronisms, but, for the most part, the translation is interesting and readable.

Buy The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language