the Cotton Patch Version - Clarence Jordan

Just a word of caution when reading the cotton patch version. In my opinion the New world Translation by the JW's looks like a good translation 

the Cotton Patch Version of Paul's Epistles

....We need to have the good news come to us not only in our own tongue but in our own time. We want to be participants in the faith not merely spectators. When Jesus told the story of "a certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho," every person in his audience may have felt as though he himself were that "certain man" who fell among thieves on the familiar and oft-traveled road. But few of us would feel so personally involved. . . . So the "cotton patch" version is an attempt to translate not only the words but the events. We change the setting from first century Palestine to twentieth-century America. 

Another reason for a "cotton patch" version is that the Scriptures should be taken out of the classroom and stained-glass sanctuary and put out under God's skies where people are toiling and crying and wondering, where the mighty events of the good news first happened and where alone they feel at home. We want Paul's letters to have the simplicity, the humbleness, the earthiness which they had the still had before Christians erected temples of mortar and stone. 

1. And so, when Jesus got through briefing his band of twelve, he checked out of there to teach and preach in their cities.

2. When John, who was in the clink, heard the things the Leader was doing, he sent a message to him by his students. “Are you the Expected One,” they asked, “or are we to wait for someone else?” Jesus replied, “Please go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing—tell him the blind are seeing and the lame are walking, the lepers are getting well and the deaf are hearing, corpses are coming alive and the poor people are being told about the big doings. Tell him, too, that a man is wise not to be turned off by my thing.”

7. As they left, Jesus began talking to the crowds about John: “What did you expect to see when you went out to the backwoods? A bamboo blown this way and that by the wind? Really, what did you expect to see when you went out? A man dressed up in his Sunday best? Listen, well-dressed people live in suburbs. Honestly now, why did you go out there? To see a man of God? Of course! And brother, I’m telling you, what a man of God! He’s the one to whom this Scripture refers:

‘I’m sending my agent to precede you;

He’ll get everything ready for your coming.’

I tell you right now, John the Baptizer is the greatest man that’s ever been born. But, the tiniest baby in the God Movement is greater than he! For ever since John the Baptizer started preaching until right now the God Movement has been infected with violence, and men of violence are taking it over. For until John’s time all the prophets and the law spoke to this point. And if you are willing to admit it, John himself is the ‘Elijah-to-come.’ Now think that over!

16. “How shall I describe this generation? They are like kids playing in the streets and shouting at each other, ‘We put on some rock-and-roll, but you wouldn’t dance; so we put on some funeral music, but you wouldn’t go into mourning.’ For John offered a harsh, rugged life, and people say, ‘The guy is nuts.’ I, the son of man, offered laughter and joy, and people say, ‘Look at that guy. He is a no-good bum who runs around with Communists and peaceniks!’ So, if intelligence can be judged by its fruits, well—!”

20. Then he started lambasting the cities in which he had done most of his works, because they refused to re-order their lives. “It will be hell for you, Columbus; it will be hell for you, Albany; because if Dalton and Calhoun had seen as many mighty works as you have, they would have reshaped their lives right off the bat. But I’m giving it to you straight, Dalton and Calhoun will have it a lot easier on Judgment Day than you will. And you, Savannah, do you think you’ll be praised to the skies? You’ll be sent to hell! Because if the mighty works which have been done in you had happened in Sodom, it would be standing till this very day. But I’m giving it to you straight, it will be easier on Sodom on Judgment Day than on you.”

25. About that time Jesus said, “I fully agree with you, Father, .......