- The King James Bible (KJV) was translated in the 1600s to be read aloud in services. The translators used poetic language and punctuation to give the text a fresh reading. The Victorian English is above a 12th grade reading level.
- The Lockman Foundation translated The New American Standard Bible (NASB) in 1971. It is an accurate word-for-word translation. The NASB is excellent for in-depth study. This version is at an 11th grade reading level.
- The Amplified Bible (1965, Updated 1987) is word for word and gives an "amplified" meaning of the word in parentheses. It is not a good Bible for reading aloud, but it is used to understand the shades of meaning in Hebrew and Greek words. It is at an 11th grade reading level
- The New International Version (NIV) was translated in 1978 (Updated, 1984) as an easy-to-read 7th grade reading translation.
- The CEV or the Contemporary English Version uses simple sentence structure and modern vocabulary. It uses gender-neutral language at a 4th grade reading level.
- The New Living Translation (NLT, 1st ed. 1996; 2nd ed. 2004) Scholars compared The Living Bible (a paraphrase) with the original Hebrew and Greek and used the "closest natural equivalent." It uses "gender neutral" 6th grade language.
