New Revised Standard Version

Updated Edition

Contains the Old and New Testaments and the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, copyright © 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

To the Reader

From the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

Motivated by love and respect for Scripture, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) hopes that you will find this New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue) suitable to inspire, inform, and guide daily living. The goal of the NRSVue is to offer a readable and accurate version of the Holy Bible to the global English-speaking community for public worship and personal study, for scholarship and study in classrooms, and for informing faith and action in response to God.

Together with religious leaders from diverse communities of faith, we join in the conviction that the Scriptures offer good news of God’s love—wisdom to guide, hope to sustain, truth to empower, forgiveness to change, and peace to bless all of creation.

The NRSVue extends the New Revised Standard Version’s (NRSV) purpose to deliver an accurate, readable, up-to-date, and inclusive version of the Bible. It also continues the work of offering a version as free as possible from the gender bias inherent in the English language, which can obscure earlier oral and written renditions. The NRSVue, like the NRSV, follows “in the tradition of the King James Bible, [introducing] such changes as are warranted on the basis of accuracy, clarity, euphony, and current English usage, . . . as literal as possible, as free as necessary” (NRSV’s preface “To the Reader”). As also stated in the NRSV preface, the Bible’s message “must not be disguised in phrases that are no longer clear or hidden under words that have changed or lost their meaning; it must be presented in language that is direct and plain and meaningful to people today.”

Why an Update?

The NRSV has been called the most accurate of English-language translations, based on the available manuscript evidence, textual analysis, and philological understanding. In the more than thirty years since its first publication, hundreds of ancient manuscripts have been studied in exacting detail. The NRSVue is informed by the results of this research. Laboring through this material has deepened scholarly insight into Jewish and Christian sacred texts and advanced understanding of ancient languages. With new textual evidence, historical insights, and philological understandings (which include exploring the meanings of ancient texts in light of the cultures that produced them), the NRSVue brings greater precision in interpreting Scripture today. The goal of these practices has been to translate the ancient texts as accurately as possible while reflecting the cultural differences across time and conditions. Such a translation ...