This week your homework is designed to help you focus on the ‘message,’ of the Scripture and not the translation. Read each of the passages in a popular English translation (NIV, ESV), an older English translation (KJV/RSV), and a paraphrase (MSG) or any three different translations. As you read at least three translations of different kinds of each passage, write, in your own translation, what you believe the ‘message’ of the verse is. The website studylight.org is a valuable resource for doing this easily.
For example, Proverbs 4:23 in the three translations in below:
Then, write your own translation and personalize what you believe the message is of the passage. You might write something like: “More important than anything else, I must vigilantly protect my heart because my entire life flows from it.”