A Word About the New International Reader’s Version
God has always spoken so people would know what he meant. When God first gave the Bible to his people, he used their languages. They could understand what they read. God wants us to understand the Bible today too. So we have worked hard to make the New International Reader’s Version easy to read and understand.
What Is the New International Reader’s Version?
The New International Reader’s Version (NIrV) is a new Bible translation based on the New International Version (NIV). The NIV Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) didn’t produce the NIrV. But several members of CBT worked hard to make the NIrV possible. The NIV is easy to understand and very clear. More people read the NIV than any other English Bible. We made the NIrV even easier to read and understand. We used the words of the NIV when we could. Sometimes we used shorter words. We explained words that might be hard to understand. We made the sentences shorter.
We also did some other things to make the NIrV a helpful Bible version for you. For example, sometimes a Bible verse quotes from another place in the Bible. When that happens, we put the other Bible book’s name, chapter and verse right there.
We separated each chapter into shorter sections. We gave a title to almost every chapter. Sometimes we even gave a title to the shorter sections. That will help you understand what each chapter or section is all about.
Sometimes the writers of the Bible used more than one name for the same person or place. For example, in the New Testament the Sea of Galilee is also called the Sea of Gennesaret and the Sea of Tiberias. But in the NIrV we decided to call it the Sea of Galilee everywhere it appears in the New Testament. We did it because that is its most familiar name.
We also wanted to help our readers learn the names of people and places even in verses where those names don’t actually appear. For example, when we knew that “the River” meant “the Euphrates River,” we used those words even in verses where only the words “the River” are found. When we knew that the name of “Pharaoh” in a certain verse was “Hophra,” we wrote his name in that verse. We did all of those things because we wanted to make the NIrV as clear as possible.
Is the NIrV an Accurate Bible?
At the time the Bible was written, God’s people used the Hebrew and Greek languages. So the first writers of the Bible used those languages. We wanted the NIrV to say just what the first writers of the Bible said. So we kept checking what the Hebrew and Greek said.
We used the best and oldest copies of the Hebrew and Greek. Some of the first English Bibles could not use those copies because they had not yet been found. But today we can check copies that are closer in time to the ones the first Bible writers wrote. We wanted to make sure we were giving you the actual Word of God.
There are two places in the NIrV where some verse are marked with long lines. We don’t know whether the first writers of the Bible wrote those verses. They may have been added later on. You will find the long lines at Mark 16:9–20 and John 7:53—8:1.
Verses That Were Not Found in Earliest Greek New Testaments
Later copies of the Greek New Testament added several verses that the earlier ones don’t have. An example is Mark 9:44. That verse is not in the oldest Greek New Testaments. So we put the number 43/44 right before Mark 9:43. The verse for Mark 9:44 is listed below.
Matthew 17:21 But that kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.
Matthew 18:11 The Son of Man came to save what was lost.
Matthew 23:14 How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You take over the houses of widows. You say long prayers to show off. So God will punish you much more.
Mark 7:16 Everyone who has ears to hear should listen.
Mark 9:44 In hell,/ “the worms do not die./ The fire is not put out.”
Mark 9:46 In hell,/ “the worms do not die./ The fire is not put out.”
Mark 11:26 But if you do not forgive, your Father who is in heaven will not forgive your sins either.
Mark 15:28 Scripture came true. It says, “And he was counted among those who disobey the law.”
Luke 17:36 Two men will be in the field. One will be taken and the other left.
Luke 23:17 It was Pilate’s duty to let one prisoner go free for them at the Feast.
John 5:4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down. The angel would stir up the waters. The first disabled person to go into the pool after it was stirred would be healed.
Acts 8:37 Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you can.” The official answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Acts 15:34 But Silas decided to remain there.
Acts 24:7 But Lysias, the commander, came. By using a lot of force, he took Paul from our hands.
Acts 28:29 After he said that, the Jews left. They were arguing strongly among themselves.
Romans 16:24 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you. Amen.
What Is Our Prayer for You?
The Lord has blessed the New International Version in a wonderful way. He has used it to help millions of its readers. Many have put their faith in Jesus after reading it. Many others have become stronger believers because they have read it.
We hope and pray that the New International Reader’s Version will help you in the same way. If that happens, we will give God all of the glory.
A Word About This Edition
This edition of the New International Reader’s Version has been revised so that the gender language more closely matches that of the New International Version. When we prepared this new edition, we had help from people who were not part of the first team. We want to thank them for their help. They are Ben Aker from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Paul House from the Southern Baptist Seminary, and Scott Munger from International Bible Society.