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…are nearly nonexistent as I continue my use of that new ESV I bought a couple weeks ago.

I am finding the translation to be smooth-reading, with good choices in most cases with regards to good English. As I have said before, it’s not simplified English, but it’s good English for the educated reader.

I’m pleased to be able to say that when I run across a word or passage that seems a little odd, as I did a couple days ago in Romans 11, verse 9, which says:

9 And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

I go to other translations to see how they have translated it, and usually I find that the ESV is very close to the “standard” translation. In that particular case, I thought the idea of the “table” being a “snare” sounded a little fishy, like it might be an odd rendering for the sake of word-for-word accuracy. I checked with the TNIV, the NIV, and the NASB, and found it was all the same!

So my reading of the ESV is going along swimmingly. If I have any real complaints, they have more to do with this particular Bible rather than the translation.

I am still surprised every time I open this Bible up, to find that I can read such small print! I can tell it’s right about at my minimum limit, but still it’s so clear! It’s got to have something to do with the spacing between the lines of text and probably the spacing between the words and even the letters, plus the shapes of the letters.

Sadly, I can’t say the same for the red letter passages. The red ink is so light that it is hard to read; a full page of red letter, like in Matthew 5-6-7 (The Sermon on the Mount) is just a reddish blur. They really, REALLY need to stop making red-letter Bibles. They’re just plain bad news.

My other complaint is one I have made about Crossway’s Bibles in the past, but not recently. I just can’t figure out why they think the footnotes have to be in a far-smaller font size than the text. It seems, though the text in this Bible is supposedly 8.2 point, the notes have to be about 3 point. Once in a while I can sort-of make out what they say; usually I have to go and get a magnifying glass. Without that it’s hopeless! They need to make the notes at least almost as large as the text itself. They could make them the same size and just use a different font, and that would be good. There would be no major sacrifice in size and portability, as this is quite a small Bible to begin with. They could make it a half inch taller and wider, even a quarter inch thicker, use far larger print, and it would still be a small, comfortable Bible. Plus, it would have that great added feature of being easy to read!

Next time I will be getting an ESV Bible with larger print and black letter. I will not accept anything less! But other than that, I am quite pleased with my purchase!