Finally read every book of the Bible the way its first readers heard it.

Before you read a single verse, you read one page. It has the same eight parts for every book, so after two or three books you know exactly where to look:

1. 1
   In one line: the whole book in a sentence, so you know where it is going before chapter 1.
2. 2
   Where it sits in the story: the eleven eras of the Bible with this book lit up, so you never lose your place.
3. 3
   Who, to whom, when: who wrote it (as tradition credits, where that is debated), who first heard it, and what was happening that year.
4. 4
   What kind of writing it is, and how to read it: a law is not read like a love song, and a letter is not read like a vision.
5. 5
   Read closely, skim freely: the chapters to take slowly, and the ones you can let your eyes run over.
6. 6
   The word behind the word: one word from the Hebrew or the Greek that changes the book once you hear it.
7. 7
   Watch for: three moments to look out for, with their chapters.
8. 8
   One verse to carry: from the King James, the one to take with you.

Three minutes, and you open your Bible knowing what you're about to read. It works with any translation: every reference is by chapter and verse.

Knowing that Ruth comes from Moab, across the Dead Sea, a people who were often Israel's enemies, and that her story happens "in the days when the judges ruled", a dark and lawless time, changes every scene you read. That's what the page gives you before chapter 1.

And when something in the text stops you, the answer is one tap away. Behind every Read-Ready page there are Go deeper pages, as long as the book needs: the story section by section with its chapters, the names and places you'll meet, the hard part of that book, how it connects to the rest of the Bible and to Jesus, three ways to read it, and more words from the original. Obadiah gets a page. Genesis gets many. One page to start. A tap to go deeper.

Leviticus has ended more Bible reading plans than anyone likes to admit, the plans of people who love God and meant to read every word. Nobody told them that much of it was written for the priests: the offerings, clean and unclean, who may serve at the altar. Those chapters are the priests' job description, and you're allowed to read them like one.

Every Read-Ready page tells you which chapters to read closely and which you can skim. In Leviticus: take chapter 1 slowly and the rest gets easier, read 16 and 19 with your full attention, skim the rules for priests. Do it with a clear conscience. That's how experienced readers get through Leviticus.

The book of Ruth runs on one Hebrew word: hesed. The King James says kindness here, and mercy or lovingkindness in other books, because English has no single word for it: a kindness that comes from commitment, the kind you keep showing when nobody could make you. Read Ruth with that word in mind and you see it on every page: no one in the book has to be kind, and each of them chooses to be.

Every book in the guide has its word like this, Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New, with the verses where it appears. Each one is checked against the original text and explained from a standard lexicon. Your Bible gives you a faithful English word. The Hebrew and the Greek carry more than one English word can hold.

Your grandson at the dinner table, a new believer in your group, the coworker who read one verse online and wants to know how you can believe it: when one of them asks who wrote this, or why God did that, you know where to look: the page of that book tells you who, to whom, when and why, and its hard part tells you what the context changes, and what it doesn't.

Where churches read a passage differently, the guide says so in a line, without taking sides, so you can bring the question to your own pastor. It's there for your own reading, for the lesson you're preparing, and for Wednesday night.

No 600-page commentary you'll never open, and no tiny print that fights your reading glasses. The phone edition was laid out for the phone from its first page: one column, big type, a contents page where you tap the book you want, and one tap from the Read-Ready page to Go deeper and back.

It's in your inbox minutes after you order, so tonight's reading can start with it. And the print edition comes with it, US Letter with each Read-Ready page on a single sheet, for your Bible, your binder or your group.