I've got different versions of the bible.
Me too!
I love the Message Bible...as a poet,myself ...its unique prose hits home. It was my mother, ironically, because she is super conservative, who introduced me to the Message by reading as a cross reference during a horrid break-up period. I remember she read Hosea over the phone ..she's in Cali...and I loved it and then she surprised me by sending me a red,well actually more like wine-colored leatherbound copy...
the Message people have a life-long guarantee on your Message bible..that if it wears out..you can have a brand new one....
I read how Eugene Peterson came to write it ..and loved the whole back story behind creating of it..it's still a fairly new intrepretation but my..what popularity!
..... and the poetry..is just..amazing
gritty.beautiful.wild.honest
The guy who broke up with me ....the one who was..lol.. my initiation/messenger/entry into the Message....... well before that unpleasant memorable event....he took me to a museum for an exhibit on Oscar Wilde's writings as we both loved Wilde's work/comedy etc.......but then he said..at the end of our date... wait..there's one more thing I want to show you.. Iwasn't sure what he was showing me..it was alibrary of books... just old old books but exmaing closely .....
I saw it was an entire collection of different antique..historical Bibles..and he's Jewish~
But he'd realized..before I even did ..how important it was to me to read different bibles...I mean,I had several different versions of the Bible kept in the apartment..but collected them without thought..and he clearly observed all the different bibles without mentioning it until it was indirectly referenced on the musuem date.
So yes...I love the Message but it's only, though an important part, of a whole of different versions in the biblical instruction..it took me a while to register on a concious level that's what I needed.....several versions to better understand..and I am not done yet!...adding more to the collection....
Hosea 2:14-17 (The Message)
14-15 "And now, here's what I'm going to do:
I'm going to start all over again.
I'm taking her back out into the wilderness
where we had our first date, and I'll court her.
I'll give her bouquets of roses.
I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope.
She'll respond like she did as a young girl,
those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.
16-20 "At that time"—this is God's Message still—
"you'll address me, 'Dear husband!'
Never again will you address me,
'My slave-master!'
And then I'll marry you for good—forever!
I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.
Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go.
You'll know me, God, for who I really am.
