S I M P L I F I E D E N G L I S H V E R S I O N

LETTERS

FROM THE

HOLY BIBLE

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Simplified English Version for Indigenous Australians

Published by The Bible League Inc.© 2014

PO Box 714 Penrith NSW 2751Freecall: 1800 800 937info@bl.org.auwww.bl.org.auPrinted with the support of the GFM Foundation

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S I M P L I F I E D E N G L I S H V E R S I O N

LETTERS

FROM THE

HOLY BIBLE

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FROM THE HOLY BIBLE

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This page tells a bit more aboutthe letter that James wrote

James was a young brother of Jesus and he wrote thisletter about 20 years after Jesus went back to heaven. Atthat time James was a leader in the church in Jerusalem.

James wrote this message to the Christians in otherchurches at that time and now it is a part of the HolyBible. It tells us the way to become better Christians.

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The letter that James wrote

Chapter 11I am James. I work for God and for our Lord Jesus

Christ. I write this letter to all God’s people that live in lotsof places everywhere in the world.

I hope you are all good and happy.

If you get trouble2Listen, my friends, if you get a lot of trouble because

you are Christian, don’t get upset. No, you can be happyabout it, because God is letting them test you to see if youbelieve in him properly. 3He lets them do this to teach youto keep on trusting him all the time. 4Then, after you learnthat properly you will be really strong. You won’t miss outon any of those things that make you a good Christian.

Ask God to help you do good 5Whenever you want to properly understand what is the

right thing to do, and you do not know the way to stopdoing bad things, just ask God to help you. He will notgrowl at you. He is happy if you ask him for help like this,and he will help you and make you think properly. He willmake you think the right way so that you won’t do thosebad things any more. 6But whenever you ask him, you havegot to believe that he will answer you. Don’t think: “Maybehe will not listen to me.” No, don’t think like that. Anybodythat thinks like that can’t stay strong. He is like a bit of drygrass. The wind just blows it around and it goes anywhere. 7-8If you are like that, if you don’t know whether to follow

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God or not, it is like you are thinking 2 ways at the sametime and you won’t be sure about anything. If you are likethat you can’t expect God to help you.

Poor people and rich people 9Whenever a Christian does not have much money God

thinks he is important. So that Christian can be happy. 10Andsomebody that has a lot of money can be happy too, if Godwill take it all off him later on. He is like a flower growingin the bush. 11At first it looks good but later on the sun getshot and that flower dries up and does not look good anymore. Well, people with a lot of money are like that. Lateron, while they are still trying to get more things they willsuddenly die, and they will not think about that money anymore.

Keep on believing12Whenever God lets people test you, to see if you trust

him properly, don’t give up trusting him. After God sees thatyou keep on trusting him he will make you really happy,and he will give you a good prize. You will live forever. Hepromised to do that for everybody that loves him.

What makes us do wrong?13Whenever you feel you want to do something that is

wrong don’t blame God and say, “He is pushing me to dowrong just to try me out.” No way. God never pushesanybody to do wrong, and nobody can trick God to makehim do wrong. 14-15 If we only think about things we want forourselves and we don’t think about things God wants us todo, we are just tricking ourselves. We just think aboutwhatever we want, and then we go ahead and do bad things.If we keep on doing that we will die.

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God is good to us16Don’t let anybody trick you, my friends. 17Everything

that is really good comes from God in heaven. He made thesun, moon and stars up there in the sky that give us light.They make shadows that move and change around, but Godnever changes at all. He always gives us good things.

18He wanted us to be in his own family, so he sent histrue word to us. And after we believed that word it was likewe were born all over again. He says we are real special, weare his very own relatives.

Listen to God and do everything he says19My dear friends, you have got to be ready to listen to

other people, and you have to stop and think before you sayanything yourself. Stop and think before you get angry, too.20If you are angry you cannot do the good things that Godwants you to do. 21So you have got to stop doing everythingthat is dirty and wrong. You have got to be good and gentlewith people. You have got to listen to that word from Godwhich he put right inside you. That word will save you.

22And don’t just listen to that word from God but youhave got to do everything it says too. If you don’t do thethings it says you will just trick yourself. 23-24Don’t be like aman that looks at his face in a mirror but then he just walksaway and he forgets about it. He does not do anything tomake himself look any better. If you hear God’s word, butdo not do the things it says you are just like that man,because you forget that word and you do not do anything tomake yourself any better. 25Don’t be like that. You have gotto listen to God’s word and keep thinking about it. Don’tforget it, but do everything it says. That word will make you

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free so that you will do everything God wants. And Godwill make you really happy whenever you do the things hewants you to do.

26You might go to church and think you are pretty good,but if you cannot stop yourself from saying bad things, youare really just tricking yourself, and going to church fornothing. 27God wants you to look after people that needhelp. He wants you to look after people that have no moneyto buy food, like kids that have no father or mother, orwomen whose husbands have died. If you do that kind ofthing God will be happy with you. But if you are like thepeople in this world and do bad things to just look afteryourself God will not be happy with you.

Chapter 2Be good to all kinds of people

1Listen, my friends. Jesus Christ is our really greatLeader, so if you really believe in him you will be good toeverybody and treat them all the same way. 2Suppose oneman comes to your church service wearing real flash clothesand gold rings on his fingers, and another poor man comeswearing old rubbish clothes. 3-4Maybe you look at the manwith flash clothes and think to yourself, “He has got a lot ofmoney”. So you are good to him and say to him “Here is areally good seat for you.” But you are rough on the poorman and say to him “You stand over there”, or “You can siton the ground”. If you are like that you make yourself like abad judge. You are wrong if you do that. Don’t think thatway about people. You have to be good to everybodywhether they have money or not.

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5Listen to me, my friends. God picks out poor people andhe gets them to properly trust him. He promises to makethem his relatives. He promises this to everybody that loveshim. He will give them their own place in his good country,in heaven. In the end those poor people will be really rich.6So you are wrong if you rubbish poor people. Just thinknow. Who is rough on you? Who takes you to court? Dopoor people do that, or rich people? Rich people do it. 7Andthey talk against Jesus Christ. You belong to Jesus Christ butthey rubbish him.

8God is our King and this is his law. It is in his book:“Love other people just like you love yourself.” If you dothat, you are doing good. 9But if you are good to somepeople but rough on other people, you are doing bad. Youare not following that law. 10Now think about God’s laws. Ifyou do not follow all of God’s laws you are guilty. Supposeone man does everything in those laws except that he breaksone law, that man is guilty. Suppose another man breaks allthose laws, he is guilty too. They are both guilty. 11It is likethis: One of God’s laws is, “Don’t sleep with somebody thatis not your own wife or husband.” And another law is,“Don’t kill anybody dead.” Suppose you did not sleep withthe wrong person but you did kill somebody dead, you areguilty anyway, because you did not follow all of God’s laws.

12God will judge us and he will use the law that tells usto love other people. So before you say anything and beforeyou do anything you have to think about that law from God.That is the law that makes us free so that we can dowhatever is right. 13Later on God will judge you and he willnot be sorry for you if you were not sorry for other people.But if you are sorry for them and good to them, God will be

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sorry for you and good to you. God can be good to peoplethat he judges.

Believe the right way and do the right things14My friends, it is no good for you to say that you believe

in Jesus Christ if you do not do the things he wants you todo. If you reckon you believe, but you don’t do the thingshe wants, you cannot think that God will save you. 15If thereis another Christian that is hungry and needs food, or coldand needs some clothes, 16you can’t just talk and give themnothing. You can’t just say “Don’t worry. I hope you getsomething to eat and I hope you get some clothes to wear.”If you don’t do anything to help them, you do no good atall. 17So if you reckon that you believe in Jesus Christ butyou do not do the good things that he wants you to do, Ireckon your talk is not true. It is useless. It will get younowhere.

18Maybe you reckon, “Some people can believe in Jesusand other people can do the good things that Jesus says todo.” I answer like this: “You cannot show me that youbelieve in Jesus if you do not do the things he says. Butwhenever I do the good things he tells me to do I show youthat I do believe in him.” 19You reckon you believe that thereis only one God, eh? You are right. And you are thinkingjust the same way as the devils think. They believe thatthere is only one God, and whenever they think about himthey get really frightened of him. They get so frightened thatthey shake!

20-23It is no good to say that you believe in Jesus if you donot do the things he says. If you are so stupid that you donot agree with me just think about the story of Abraham,

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our first grandfather. God told Abraham to give him his sonIsaac. To do that Abraham had to kill Isaac and burn hisbody on a table made of stones. Abraham believed thatsomehow God would make it end up all right, so he startedto do that hard thing that God said. He started to kill Isaac.But just then God told him to stop. We read in God’s book,

“Abraham believed God, and so God said that he was areally good man.” And in another place it says that Abrahamnot only believed God but he also did that hard thing Godtold him to do, so Abraham was a friend of God. 24So fromthat story we learn that God will say that we are alright onlyif we believe him so much that we do whatever he says.

25And think about that story about Rahab. She was a badwoman that used to sleep around with any man that paid hermoney. But one day Israel’s enemies were chasing twoIsraeli men and those two asked Rahab to help them. Shehid them in her house until their enemies went past, andthen she told them which way to run to get away. Shehelped those two men, so God was happy with her. Later on,while a lot of Israeli soldiers attacked that town, God savedher and those soldiers did not kill her.

26It is like this: If a man’s body does not breathe it is nogood. He is dead. In the same way, if you say you believe inJesus but you do not do the things God wants you to do, youare no good as a Christian. It is like you are dead.

Chapter 3Teachers need to be careful and teach properly

1-2My friends, we should not all try to become teachers ofGod’s word. It is like this, all of us make mistakes and weget trouble from those mistakes. But if we teach people and

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make a mistake so that we teach them something that iswrong, we will get really big trouble from that. It is hard forus to control our tongues so that we say everything properly.If you can control your tongue you are pretty good, and youcan control your whole body.

3Think about the people that ride horses. They put a littlebit of steel in the horse’s mouth and they tie reins to it, thenthey use that bit of steel to turn the whole horse around andsteer it wherever they want it to go. 4Think too about ships.They are like that too. A ship is very big, but the captain canuse the little rudder at the back to steer it around. Even ifstrong winds want to blow it one way the captain can steer itanother way using that little rudder. 5Well, these are picturesof our tongues. They are only little, like that bit of steel andthat little rudder. But our tongues can do a lot of damage ifwe use them to talk up big and say that we are really good.Think about fire. A very little spark can start a fire that canburn up a lot of bush. 6In the same way each of us has alittle tongue, and it is like a little spark of fire inside us. Itcan say really bad things, and tell lies, and that can makethe rest of our body bad too. It can make everything in ourlives go wrong, like a spark of fire can make a big bushfire.The devil in hell makes us say those bad things. It is like heuses our tongues to start that fire and it grows like a bushfireand gets us into a lot of trouble. 7People can control allkinds of wild animals and birds and snakes and fish. Theycan make them quiet and train them to do whatever theirboss wants them to do. 8But no one can control his owntongue properly. It is always saying bad things and hurtingpeople, like it has poison in it just like a cheeky snake.

9-12Sometimes we use our tongue to tell God that he is

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good, and sometimes we use it to swear at people. But Godmade people to be like himself! So both good things andbad things come out of our mouths. That is not right. Doyou ever find fresh water and salt water coming from thesame waterhole? No, it is never like that. And you neverfind 2 sorts of fruit on one tree. So our mouths should notsay 2 sorts of things. We should not say good things and badthings with the same mouth.

Think God’s way, not the Devil’s way13Do you reckon you can think good and you know if

something is right or wrong? If you do, you have to showeverybody that you think properly by quietly doing goodthings for other people. You are thinking properly if you dothose good things but don’t tell anybody about it. 14-15But ifyou only think about things that are good for yourself, andif you are jealous of other people and hate other people, youare not thinking God’s way. That is the Devil’s way. You cannot hide it by telling lies about yourself and saying that youare really good. 16If people are jealous of each other and ifthey only do things to make themselves happy and if theydon't think about anyone else, soon they will start fightingeach other, and they will get into all kinds of trouble.

17Whenever we think God’s way we are like this:- we keep away from doing anything bad; - we want to make other people happy and help them to

be friends with each other; - we are gentle all the time and let other people have

their way; - we are good to people and do things to help them; - we are fair to everybody – we don’t treat some people

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good and other people like rubbish; - and we don’t try to pretend that we are better than we

really are.18Whenever someone teaches people to live the right way

like that, those other people stop fighting each other andstart to be good to each other.

Chapter 4Let God be your boss, not the Devil

1Why do you always fight and argue with each other? I’lltell you why. It is because you only think about things thatyou want for yourself, to make yourself happy, and you donot care about anyone else. So you fight everyone else to getthe things you want. 2You think you want something a reallot and if you can not get it you argue and fight for it. Youtry to work out ways to trick people, or maybe even killpeople, just to get something you want. You do not ask Godfor it so you do not get it. 3And even if you do ask God hedoes not listen to you. He knows that you are just thinkingabout yourself. He knows you just want to make yourselfhappy and you do not care about anybody else, so he doesnot give you that thing you want.

4If you are like this it shows that you left God. Youstopped following him and joined the other people in theworld that hate God. They are God’s enemies. So if you joinup with people like that you make yourself God’s enemy.You ran away from God. You are just like a woman thatleaves her husband and runs away with another man.

5God’s book says that he put his Holy Spirit in us, andhis Spirit gets really upset if we leave him and follow someother way. You have got to understand that message. 6And

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remember that God is really good and kind to us. His booksays:

“God is against people that think they are great,But he is good and kind to people that know they are

not great.”7So listen to God, follow him and do whatever he says.

Whenever the Devil tries to get you to go wrong just tellhim to shut up and don’t listen to him, then he will runaway from you. 8You have to trust God more so that you getcloser to him, and if you do that he will come closer to youand help you. You have got to stop doing bad things. Don’teven think about doing bad things. Don’t think that maybeyou will go the right way, or maybe the wrong way. No,forget the wrong way and just go the right way. 9Stoplaughing about the bad things you did. Cry about theminstead. You did wrong, so be sad, not happy. 10Tell God thatyou are sorry. Tell him you are weak and need him to helpyou. If you do that he will say that you are important, andhe will make you strong.

Don’t make yourself the judge of other people11My friends, do not say bad things about each other or

rubbish each other. If you rubbish other people it is like youreckon you are their judge. But God’s law says that youhave to love other people, so you are really saying thatGod’s law is wrong. Hey! You are not a judge. You can’t saythat God’s law is wrong. Your job is to do whatever God’slaw says. 12God made his law and he is the only judge. He isthe only one that can blame anybody. He can savesomebody or he can kill somebody. But you can’t makeyourself a judge. You are not God!

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Don’t talk up big about something you want to do13Listen. Some of you talk like this, you say “Tomorrow

we will go to that town over there and we will buy thingsfor a little bit of money and then sell them for a lot ofmoney. We will keep doing that for a year. In that way wewill get plenty of money to keep for ourselves.” 14You talklike that saying “Tomorrow”. But you do not know whatwill happen tomorrow. Will you still be alive tomorrow?Your life is like a puff of smoke, it does not last long. Youare alive today but maybe tomorrow you will die. 15-16Sodon’t talk up big about something you will do tomorrow, butinstead you should talk like this, “If God wants us to wewill keep on living and we will go and do something.” It iswrong to forget God and talk up big about something beforeyou do it.

17So if you know the right thing to do but you do not doit, it is just the same for you as if you did something wrong.

Chapter 5God will punish people that cheat to make themselvesrich

1Now I am talking to you rich people, so you listen tome. You are going to get big trouble, so you can start rightnow to cry and be really sad. 2-3All your money and clothes,and those things you got for yourself, will all becomeuseless. They will rot away. Or they will rust away. Or whiteants will eat them. God will see that rusty rotten mess andhe will say that you are too greedy and he will give you bigtrouble. He will punish you with big trouble, like a fire thatwill burn up your body. You thought you could keep all that

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stuff for a long time but you will not have it for very long.4You cheated to get that money. You got men to work onyour farm and they cut down the food crop that grew thereand brought all that food to you. But you did not pay themfor that work. You sent them away with no pay. Then theycried about it and our God heard them. He is very strong,and he can see that you cheated them. God can see theirmoney. It is still in your pocket! So he will make big troublefor you. 5-6While you lived here on this earth you killedgood people that could not fight back. You lied and said theywere guilty and then you killed them. While you were doingthat you got everything you wanted and had plenty to eat.You are fat now, but look out! God will kill you. Thinkabout a farmer and his cow. He feeds that cow a lot of grassand makes it fat, then he kills it to get some meat. Well thatis a picture of you. You are fat now, but God will kill you.

Be patient7-8Now I am talking to you Christian people. You have

got to be patient and wait for our Lord Jesus to come back.Think about farmers. They are very patient. They plant theirfood crops and then just wait for the rain to come and makethe plants grow so that in the end the farmers will get lots offood from those plants. Well, you have to be patient likethem. Don’t give up. Our Lord Jesus will come back soon.

9My friends, don’t growl about each other, or God willjudge you and say that you are wrong. He is the big judgeand he is coming back soon. He is nearly here already.

10My friends, remember the stories from a long time ago.Think about the men that told God’s word to people. Theywere really patient, even if people didn’t believe them and

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gave them a lot of trouble. 11They didn’t give up, so now werespect them and say they were good men. Do youremember the story about Job? The Devil gave him a lot oftrouble but he was patient, and in the end God madeeverything good for him. So we know that God is very goodand very kind to his people.

12And another thing I want to say is very important, myfriends. Whenever you tell somebody something you havegot to tell the true story. Say “Yes” or “No”, whichever isright. Don’t say “God is watching us and he knows that thisis true.” No. Don’t use God’s name, or any other name. Justsay the true word and say no more, or you might go wrong,and then God will tell you that you are guilty.

This is the way to pray13Have any of you got trouble? You have to keep on

praying about it. And are any of you happy? You can sing toGod to say “Thankyou” to him, and tell everybody that Godis really good. 14Are any of you sick? You have to ask theleaders of the church to come to you and pray for you. Theycan put some olive oil on you while they pray. Jesus saysthey can do this, so they can say his name while they prayfor you. 15Whenever someone prays and really trusts God tomake a sick person better, God will do like that man asks.God will make that sick person good again. And if they didsomething wrong and got sick from that, God will notblame them for that any more. 16So whenever you go wrongand do bad things, don’t try to say that you are still good.No. Tell each other the true story about the bad things thatyou did. Then you can pray for each other so that God canmake you right again. Whenever a good man prays to God

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about something, then God uses his power and doeswhatever that good man asks for. 17Do you remember thestory about Elijah? He was just and ordinary man like us buthe prayed and asked God to stop the rain, and then it did notrain at all for three and a half years. 18Then Elijah askedGod to send rain again and a lot of rain came down, then thefood plants started to grow again.

19-20Listen, my friends, suppose any of you starts to forgetabout God’s true words and goes the wrong way, andsuppose somebody else talks to him and gets him to comeback to the right way, then God will go easy on the one thatwent wrong. He will not die, and God will not punish himfor the many bad things that he did. So the one that steershim back does a lot of good. So you have to do that sort ofthing.

Yours truly,James

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Translation Background

The aim of this Simplified English Version of Scripture is to make it easilyunderstood by Indigenous Australians whose mother tongue is anindigenous Australian language. In this translation we modified the Englishin the direction of the features that are common to almost all Australianlanguages. This has affected the vocabulary, grammar and rhetorical devicesthat we have used. We have also followed the principles of meaning basedtranslation wherein we have sought to convey to the readers of this versionthe same meaning as the original authors conveyed to the original readers,not just in terms of the words used but also of the message contained inthose words.

The following are some of the more common modifications we havemade:

• Where the grammar of the original has used the passive voice we haveused the active voice, since the grammars of most indigenous Australianlanguages do not have passive voice.

• Where the original text has used an abstract noun to express a conceptthat is fundamentally an action or a quality we have used a verb oradjective to translate that concept, since abstract nouns arecomparatively rare in Australian languages.

• Where the grammar of the original has used long and complicatedsentences we have conformed to the grammars of Australian languagesby using shorter sentences, making other adjustments as necessary toretain the meaning carried by the grammar of the original.

• Where the original text has implicit information that would not beobvious to our target audience we have made that information explicit.

• Where the original text has used a word or phrase, the literal translationof which would not be understood by our target audience, we haveused an explanatory rendering to convey the same meaning, whether ornot it involved more words.

• Where the original text has used figurative language that would betaken as literal by our target audience we have stated the meaning ofthe figure rather than its literal form.

At any one place in our translation we may have used any combination ofthe above. We have tried to keep the wording and style of this version asclose as possible to that used by Indigenous Australians who know Englishonly as a learned language.

Dave GlasgowTranslation Team Coordinator

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