WONDERFUL!!! I just wish the Message incorporated verse numbers

It took me several years to get drawn to the Message style (the book of Romans is particularly a MUST read in this heart-opening translation!), and I am much too "into" precision to read the Message without a literal translation by its side (I would consider the Message a paraphrase--highly useful but not appropriate as a stand-alone for serious study). So it was definitely God's perfect timing that I found myself looking for a copy of the Message Bible just when this parallel was available for pre-order. In recent years, I'd come to use the NASB as my "base" translation, typically finding it more accurate than others when I investigate the Hebrew or Greek (though with some verses I'm more impressed by the NKJV, which I would also gladly commend as a readable and beautiful "base" version for those who are "into" words). So I eagerly anticipated receiving the Message with my base translation side by side. And I have not been let down save one quibble: Namely, it would be enormously helpful for me if the Message text was also numbered. Even with the passages side by side, it often takes a long while to figure out what portion of the Message corresponds to which verse in the NASB. (Although the translator intended the Message not to be broken up by the verse numbers you find in most translations, there ARE numbered versions of the Message now available, but they are not parallels). Generally the Message is wordier, causing the corresponding NASB to fall on quite a different part of the page, and in those books of the Bible in which the authors hearken back to the same ideas a lot, figuring out just what corresponds to the NASB verse can slow me down enormously.

awe--SOME!!!

this Bible was everything i hoped for...its sweeet. i got it within a day even tho i didnt pay for one-day delivery lol--the Bible is awesome...easy to understand