Joshua 1:8 — This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (ESV)
Well, if we must, let’s start again. Let’s reset the calendar, restart the clock and start again.
One cycle that Myra and I restart every year is our annual read through the Bible. We don’t quite manage what Matin Luther did, but for the last seven or eight years we have been faithful in this. Luther said, if his regular practice:

For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.

We, too, are seeking to shake the branches, and while I don’t usually like to give the impression that I think I know what people should do, I would like to invite you to join us in this little bit of “forestry”.
There is one peculiarity to the way Myra and I pursue our daily devotional reading. Each year we choose a different translation. I know that will be anathema to some of you, but let me try to make a case.
First, let me say that I believe there are no perfect translations of the Bible, a few bad ones and quite a few very good ones. The issues of selection can be quite complicated! There’s a good discussion in Bible Study Magazine:
http://biblestudymagazine.com/preview/choosetranslationWeb.pdf
So there’s a good argument, the way I see it, for reading more than one translation of the Bible. But there’s more to it, for Myra and me.
Every time we come to the Bible we come to it as different people, with different needs. And we see the Bible as a beautiful jewel, with many facets — and each translation shines a light from a different direction. I’m reminded of what Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard said — “When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, ‘It is is talking to me, and about me.'” The best of friends will always tell you the truth and they will always be consistent in their principles — but they won’t keep saying the same thing in the same way! So why should our best friend, God, be tied to one translator’s view of what He’s saying?
So this year we’re reading a new translation. Our Pastor let us know, a few weeks ago, that He was shifting to use the English Standard Version, a fairly new version in the tradition of the King James Version. So we’ve added it to our stable and will be reading it morning by morning … In fact we started the cycle today!