Let's begin by opening our Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3, and we'll begin reading with verse 14, 14 through 17 of 2 Timothy 3. But continue thou with the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child that has known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. Every word, every particle, every jot, every tittle. And that's what we're going to speak about this afternoon when we speak about dynamic or literal translation. I'll get into those terms a little further on in the presentation. I'll begin by speaking a little bit about the Spanish Bible Project. Back in I guess the 1990s, I was working as a missionary in Bolivia, and I began corresponding with the Society over the version of the Bible we were using. It was a Spanish Bible published in 2001 by, no, I'm sorry, in 1909 by the Society. It was published and printed for over 100 years by TBS. But I was seeing that many of the readings that I had of the New Testament were different than the authorized version. I had a bilingual Bible with English on one side, the authorized version, and the 1909 Spanish on the right column. And many times there were words missing, changed, different texts, different readings. And so I began to write to the Society and ask them, why was this? Why was their Bible having different readings than the English Bible had? Well, at the time, there were some other issues going on at the Society. Mr. Rowland was not well. So my letters were finally addressed sometime in the early 2000s, around 2004, 2005. And I was asked to visit the Society, also to visit with Mr. Rowland, and asked to begin work on a revision with some Spanish-speaking people to get the Bible that we had in the Spanish back to the original Spanish and the fidelity, the textual fidelity that was in that. telling a very long story in a very short way, but to give you an idea, yeah, it was very, we saw that very providential, how I never dreamed when I was writing these letters that I would be later asked to, there's a lot that came between that obviously, but that I would be later asked to actually work for the Society in the Spanish Bible Revision Project. But it was begun around 15 years ago, 16 years ago, And very end of 2006, when Bill Patterson, Bill Patterson is a man who was born in Mexico from missionaries in Mexico, very proficient in the Greek and Hebrew, he and I began a revision of some of the calendars that the Spanish had, that the society had in the Spanish. So we began revising some of the verses for the Golden Thoughts calendars and the Words of Life scripture calendars. Well, that led on to one other thing. Mr. Rowland came and visited us again. We both met in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live. And it turned out it was decided to do a full, thorough revision on the Spanish Bible. The actual team came together in 2008 and 2009. So we have here a picture in 2000. On the right-hand side is a conference held in Buenos Aires in 2009. Well, we met with Antony Mendoza, who is here with us from Catalonia, also Alejandro Riff to the left, and then Antony is the second one to the left, and Bill Patterson, myself, Mr. Roland. We met in 2009 in Buenos Aires to set out, you might say, the parameters of the job, to find out which texts, which Greek texts Reyna and Valera, the two translators of the Bible, use. We could ascertain that by some of the readings. and also decide how we would go forward with our work. We have another man on the project since 2011, Jorge Ruiz. He's also with us from Spain today, where it's a pleasure to have and a blessing to have him here. We also hope to meet about the Spanish project tomorrow. We're just coming to the conclusion after about almost 14 years of nonstop work. We've been working full time, each of us, on this project each and every day. I spend about 40 hours a week on the Spanish. We go over every word. We compare every word to the original languages. And then we have people on the team who are very thorough and very capable in the original, but also the receptor language of Spanish. So in 2009, we set out what we thought would be about a 10-year project. Here we are about 13, almost 14 years later. We're still continuing with the Lord's help, but we hope to finish with the Lord's help the end of this year. We hope by November to have, we're on the very last of the minor prophets we hope to have finished later this year. But throughout this whole project, we've been discussing many times the readings and comparing with other Spanish Bibles, because you can get a lot of instruction also from how others have gone before. But we've seen the dynamic and literal translation respects in different in different publications of the Bible. We also have done a lot to promote, to make people known in the Latin American world of this project. So we've done more than 60 conferences since 2009 in every country in Latin America. Maybe some of you remember the article I wrote for the QR about Cuba. That was a real open door in Providence that the Lord opened the door and allowed us to go into that country and to bring his word. We still get many, many requests from Cuba every day for scripture items. We still are printing, thanks to very generous supporters, we still print articles in Cuba. We print Gospels of John, even some New Testaments of very thick paper and other things in Cuba. So these conferences all throughout Latin America have had the goal of instructing the people regarding faithful Bible translation, but also to make them know of the work we're doing so that we have a church that is ready and waiting for this translation when we finish it. As you will hear, there was a Bible for years. The 1909 Spanish Bible was published for more than 100 years by the Society until 2005. It was pulled from the shelf in 2005 because they felt it was not It sent a double message, selling one Bible and then working on another Bible. So it was felt to pull that Bible from the shelves. So that's, since 2005, we've not been able to have a Bible for the many, many thousands of Spanish pastors and people who ask us for it each and every day. So that is our goal, the Lord willing to publish the Spanish Bible next year with the Lord's blessing and hopefully it will be used and received and above all, blessed by the Lord to the salvation of many in Latin America. So as we work on our project, we've been also very much emphasizing literalness. The very literal, as literal as possible, the society's motto is, as literal as possible and as free as necessary. There are times you cannot follow the Hebrew or Greek exactly to every word or every phrase, but we try to follow that as closely as possible. Even the order of the Hebrew and the Greek, we try to follow if it allows that in the receptor language without being clumsy or awkward. So the first examples we'll give here, I'm going to give some examples so I can explain it better by giving you examples that are translated into English so they can see what we work with, what we sometimes struggle with, and how we try to resolve using a very literal translation. That's called formal equivalence. The term formal equivalence means simply to translate as literally as possible every word of the Bible as it is. That's, for example, in many modern Bibles, they don't translate. There's a small particle, chi, in the Greek that can be translated as and or but. That's often not translated when there's many in a row. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, there are many verses that begin with chi. It's a three-letter particle. So they take out that and because we've been taught in our English language, for example, that beginning a sentence with and is not proper. But it's in the Hebrew. We've just read that all scripture is given by inspiration, including those small particles. We translate all of those ands, or sometimes as buts, those particles. That's all part of God's precious word. He has given us every word, and every word is inspired. So I have some examples to show you a little bit how we try to, first of all, capture the emphasis in the original languages. In Hebrew, many times, a word is repeated to give emphasis. It's a grammatical tool, linguistic tool in Hebrew, but it doesn't always work to carry that over into the Spanish or other receptor languages. So we have an example here. In Genesis 2, chapter 17, the Spanish reads, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die. That's right, just that. But in the Hebrew, it actually says, dying thou shalt die. So there's a word repeated. One is in the participle form, and the next one is in a conjugated verb. But it's a double verb. There's two of the same verb there in the Hebrew. So most of the time, Valera, who was the revisor of the Bible in 1602 of the Spanish Bible, most of the time, he caught those Hebraisms, and he translated them as the same verb translated twice. But he didn't find this in Genesis 2 for 17, or he chose not to translate it. But in our English Bible, it says, thou shalt surely die. So that's another way of capturing the emphasis. That's why it was emphasized and that's why it was repeated in the Hebrew as a way of emphasis to show that it was a most profound statement. It was needing emphasis. So what we did, we changed the Spanish to say, This is where we have it now, and we call it the Reina Valera SBT, which is TBS in Spanish, Sociedad Biblical Trinitaria. So it's the Reina Valera, which is the Spanish Bible from the 17th century, with the revision done by the Trinitarian Bible Society. So we now have, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So we have the word ciertamente, which means surely or certainly. So this is a way of capturing the literal Hebrew, which has the emphasized word. In Jeremiah 7 verse 5, we have the verse where here, Valera caught the Hebraism, but also translated it very literally. It says, but if improving, you improve your ways. This is the Lord beginning a phrase that he's giving a promise to the Israelites, but he says, if improving, you improve your ways. Well, that's a bit awkward in the Spanish, or in the English as well, but here we're working with the Spanish. So we decided not to leave it, mas si mejorando mejorareis. It's very repetitive. It's even more so in Spanish because the two words are right together. It says, if ye improving, improve your ways. So improving, improve your ways. That becomes cluttered, a bit tough in the Spanish language. So we've changed that to also say, but if in truth, ye improve your ways. En verdad means in truth in Spanish. So if ye in truth, improve your ways. That's another way of emphasizing without repeating the same Spanish phrase. So this is the new reading that's the Spanish on the left and the translation on the right. But if in truth you improve your ways this way, we're capturing the emphasis of the Hebrew, but not giving it the cluttered reading of having two verbs repeated, which is possible in Hebrew. But as I said, we must respect the receptor languages, and that's very difficult to do in our Spanish. We also have been very careful to follow the received text, the Textus Receptus. This is the family of Greek text that was used throughout all the Reformation era, even before that. Erasmus and Beza and other ones who passed on these very, very literal and accurate renderings of the Greek New Testament. confusing copies that have been passed on throughout the centuries that the Lord had preserved in his faithfulness. So we followed this Greek Textus Receptus reading throughout the New Testament, and as we found out that Valera, Raymond Valera, had followed very closely these readings as well, but some of the readings in the 1909 version have followed what is called the critical text. Pastor Pouillon mentioned that this morning, that in the late 19th century, there was a movement of critical thinking to try to question the veracity of many biblical readings, many of the readings of the New Testament. So that's why there are 220 readings in the Bible I was using in Bolivia as a missionary. There are 220 readings that come from the critical text, and almost all of these changes have to do with just what was mentioned this morning, the deity of Christ. So many times, Christ is either taken out of the chapter, of the verse, or it's changed that his deity is questioned. For example, I think of two right off the top of my head. Romans 1 verse 16, where Paul writes, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Valletta in 1602, he had Jesus Christ. But in my Bible that I used from 1909, the Spanish Bible, it had, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, full stop, Jesus Christ is taken out. Some would say, oh, that's just one word. That's a very important word in the gospel, Jesus Christ. I think it's the most important word after blood, which we'll hear about soon. So it's things like that that really caught my eye when I was using that Bible to evangelize and to use in the school in Bolivia and seeing that some of these readings were so different. The thief on the cross, when he says, Lord, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. The word Lord is missing in the Reina Valera 1909 Bible. So the thief on the cross no longer addresses the Lord as his savior, as his Lord, but simply says, remember me. Things like that. There are very, very clear evidences of the text having been changed in a way that was not favorable. And this is what happens in the critical text. So often, very important texts regarding the divinity of Christ are altered or even removed altogether. So this is a reading from Matthew 6 verse 1 that we found in the rain in 1909, which we're revising. It was a very unusual reading where we have it in Matthew 6, verse 1. This is what came from the 1602 Bolero Bible. See that you do not your alms before men. I'm translating what is in the Spanish. See that you do not your alms before men. And that's what it says in the Greek. But when we came to this reading in the 1909 Bible, it says, see that you do not your righteousness before men. That's what we have. See that you do not, your righteousness, tu justicia, vuestra justicia, your righteousness. Well, this is a critical text reading. We found out, well, we knew that already. We have a list of all the readings of the variants from the critical text, and this is exactly what it has. It has your righteousness. So no longer are people doing their alms before men. This is in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6. So we change that back to what they had in the original Spanish Bible, which says, keep yourselves from doing your alms before men. Here you see again that it's something that's very much changing the meaning. To do your alms is different than doing your righteousness. We don't do our righteousness before men. That's a very faulty reading, also doctrinally. Another reading that we found in Mark 1 verse 2, this is a very common reading of the critical text, it says, where we have in the letter of Bible Mark 1 verse 2, as it is written in the prophets, where then it goes on to quote a verse from the prophet Isaiah. But the critical text has, as it is written, Isaiah the prophet. It doesn't say that in the Greek. It says the prophets in plural. It doesn't give the name Isaiah. But this is a reading which comes from the critical text. as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet. So here again, we've changed that. So now we have, as it is written in the prophets. These are the things that we compared all throughout the New Testament to make sure it followed the Textus Receptus reading, even in some places, changing what the original Rainer and Valera had. Here is an example of that from John 8, verse 28. But then I had, as the Father taught me that I speak, as the Father, with a definite article or the Father. But most of the text of Receptus, no, all of the text of Receptus readings have the mao, which is the possessive pronoun my. So we have changed that to what the text of Receptus has, as my Father taught me those things I speak. Christ spoke, the Eternal Son spoke of His Eternal Father, and the Eternal Father was with the eternal son from all eternity. So Christ spoke of my father. That's very much different than saying the father. The father isn't personal, where Christ said my father. So we've changed that from the father to my father. So you see the reading here, as my father taught me those things I speak. I hope this isn't overly technical. I'm trying not to go overly technical, just aware that we need to keep on a level that we can all follow. So here we come to the difference in what the critical text takes as a more dynamic reading, or actually some of the critical texts are very literally translated. For example, the ESV is a very literal translation of the critical text, so is the NASB. It's a literal translation of the critical text, but we also realize that there are many Bibles in Spanish and many other languages as well that use what's called dynamic equivalence. I've tried to summarize that in a very short phrase. It just says, translating ideas in a subjective manner. Ideas subjectively. Whereas the formal equivalence is literal, it's translating word for word objectively. So without putting our own emphasis or slant, we're going to see some examples from the NIV and other Spanish Bibles, how other Bibles twist their words to say what they want it to say. If I read the introduction of the NIV Spanish Bible, I'm astounded to read that they write, this is what God really wanted to say, as if the Lord is not able to give us his word without their help. That's a very arrogant statement, if you think of that, that this is what the Lord really wanted to say to the Spanish people. I find that really remarkable, that someone would have the nerve to actually not only think that, but put it down on paper and write that. So may we be kept also from ever looking to ourselves. how dependent we are in every step of this work on the Lord. We were thankful the Lord has helped us thus far, but we pray each and every day as a team, we pray together that he would keep us also from ever becoming something with this work we're doing. It is his work, his word, and may he receive all the honor and the glory. So that's why we pray to every day be kept from translating anything that was subjective on our part. We want to be objective and the formal equivalence to translate every word objectively in a way that just the way it is in the Hebrew Greek. Try to use the same verb tense when possible. Most of the time it is very possible. And if not, then in a way that's clearly stating the same meaning without skewing to the left or the right in any of our own doctrinal preferences. So we've translated literal words and meanings rather than translating words, rather than translating ideas. So that's what a dynamic equivalence translation will translate. Ideas will translate words but also add ideas to it with other things which we'll see, some examples. I think it's best to use examples to give what we want to say, to show what we want to say. So here we have, I'm going to show an example from the NIV, the Spanish, which is the N-V-I in Spanish, but we use the N-I-V because you know what I mean, the new international version, it's Nueva Revisión Internacional, which is the new N-I-V in Spanish. Here we have a verse from Proverbs 12, verse 9. It says, I'm going to translate the Spanish. You can see the Spanish on the left. I will translate that on the right. Better is he that is despised and has servants than he that is highly esteemed and lacks bread. That is the literal translation of that Hebrew text. The Spanish NIV uses essentially the same Hebrew text. But they, once again, as I read in their foreword, they wanted to say what the Lord really wanted to say. So look how innovative they've become with what they have. It reads just this in the NIV. A Mr. Nobody with a servant is worth more than a Mr. Somebody without bread. Well, that's very clever, but that's not what the Bible says. That's not what the Lord said in his word. Look at that. What a different thing that is than to read Better is he that is despised and has servants than he that is highly esteemed and lacks bread. That's what the Lord said in this word. And that's what their Hebrew text says as well. I've compared it. It's the same Hebrew text. There's no differences in that verse. But they thought, we need to make it understandable. So they use these cliche-type slogans that says, a Mr. Nobody with a servant is worth more than a Mr. Somebody without bread. That's quite a stretch from the original Hebrew. That is what is a very stark case of dynamic translation. Saying what we think the text really should say or what it means to say. That's, as I said, that's a very arrogant position because we're saying we can think higher than God and we can put down in words what we think that people really need to hear. No, the Lord gave his word and he's preserved it until this very day so that we hear exactly what he has said, not what people think we should hear. We'll go to another verse from the very same version, the NIV, from Proverbs 16, verse 1. where it says in the original Hebrew, and also says in the Hebrew used by the NIV, for man are the plans of the heart, but from Jehovah is the answer of the tongue. That's a very clear statement that we're very dependent on the Lord in all things, also from the very words of our mouth. So they've very much changed this verse to say something entirely different. Man reposes, but God disposes. So that whole verse, and this is in the Bible. If you check the NIV Spanish, that's in there. I'm not sure of the NIV English, but it says, we have from man are the plans of the heart, but from Jehovah is the answer of the tongue. And they have, man proposes, God disposes. Perhaps a very well-known saying in our Spanish, you say, el hombre propone, Dios dispone. It's a very common saying in Spanish. Man proposes, God disposes. But they've tried to adapt modern sayings, cliches, and put them in the Bible. This is not what the text says. It says nothing about this. Man proposes, but God disposes. So here you see a classic example of taking a text and trying to say something that it never said, and it's a very dangerous thing to do. We have to be very careful with that. We may never translate dynamically. We have to be very careful about what we read, even. These Bibles, I should make it clear that we never, when we give presentations about these different versions, and also comparing to our own version, we never Satanized, to use a lack of a better word, these versions. We never say they're from Satan. I believe the underlying purpose is satanic, but we know the Lord can use any Bible version. I've met many people, also in Latin America, who were converted under the NIV Bible. I mean, I know a man who was a, he was a pandero, how would you say that in English? He was a gang member in Venezuela, and he was going, they had a blood a blood-drinking type of group there, like a gang, where they would drink blood, and then they would go out and do terrible crimes. I wouldn't repeat some of the things that he's done when he was a criminal in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela. Well, that man was walking by a church with his gang, and he heard from a church, a very charismatic church, the words, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, and was stopped by the Lord and converted. NFE Bible. He went to that church and was converted under NFE Bible. But he now is, he's our representative in Venezuela for the society. So I would never say that these versions are satanic. We have people who ask us in Latin America, are these versions from Satan? We say, we don't, we would never say that. The underlying motives are wrong, completely unbiblical. But to say they're Satan's Bible or satanic versions, I think that's a stretch. And I think we need not make those judgments. The Lord will judge at the end of time. But maybe we kept from doing that because people have been brought to us, also in the work of the society many times, people who have been saved under all sorts of Bible versions. So are we to question their conversions then if we say those are satanic Bibles? That would be the case, right? May we be kept also from judging. The Lord is the judge of all. But may we always have a desire and a fervent desire to have the very true and accurate Word of God in our own language. Here's another very interesting one by the NIV, and I'll go to other versions after this one. This is in Hebrews 5 verse 11. where we have in the English, in that ye have become slow to hear. I have it here on the slide, in that ye are slow to hear, but it's actually I see in the Spanish, it's in that ye are become slow to hear. That's where Paul writes to the Hebrews and said he has many other things to say to them, but they have become slow to hear. Their ears have become slow to hear. Well, the NIV goes a stretch further. It says, what enters one ear goes out the other. That's not what Paul wrote. And that's not what's in their Greek New Testament either. No Greek New Testament reads this way. This is a completely wrong statement, because Paul didn't say they didn't listen. He said, they're slow to hear. It means that all of us are sometimes slow to hear. We get sleepy or we get tired or we're not paying attention. That's not the same as having something go in here and out the other ear. That's a, here you see it's a very, I see it's a very sloganistic Bible. It has a lot of cliches and things like this that are catchy to the reader and makes it sound more pertinent, perhaps more current, but it's not what the Lord said. It's not what Paul wrote. He wrote, the author of Hebrews, right, wrote specifically that they had become slow to hear. That's not the same as something going in one ear, out the other. So these are classic examples. We could choose thousands of examples from other Bibles to show what a dynamic translation is. It's a very subjective thought process that goes behind saying, we think the idea here is this, not what the original says. Here's another one from a Bible in Spanish. where it says in Romans 5 verse 1, justify then by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of justification is very essential to the Christian doctrine, to the biblical doctrines of grace. The justification of a sinner before the Lord, that payment that has been completely absolved all his sins before a holy and righteous God. But here we have, oh, it's the NIV again. I thought it was a different version in Spanish, but we have the NIV says this. God has accepted us because we trusted in him. Our savior, Jesus Christ, made this possible. That is why we now live in peace with God. they feel the word justified is too technical. They call those, there's a word they use in the Spanish, there's certain sayings that it's like a jargon, it's a very religious, ecclesiastical jargon they call it. Yeah, the Herga Ecclesiastica. There's ecclesiastical jargon, they feel that there's something the average reader won't understand, so they've tried to make it easy. But which part of here in this verse with the NIV tells me, actually this is a different version, but many of them have the same thing, so we'll go with the NIV, It says God has accepted us. That's not justification that I can understand. Because we trusted in him. That's not justification. Our Savior Jesus Christ made this possible. That's not justification. That is where we now live in peace with God. That's not justification. Yes, the fruit of justification is living at peace with God, but they don't, they've missed the whole doctrinal essence of what is justification by faith and a justification before the Lord and before a holy and righteous God. So here again, a very key doctrine of scripture has been completely muddled and taken away, if you will, by this version. Oh, this is another version. It says, this text is, sorry, Colossians 1 verse 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins." As I said, after the word Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the term Jesus Christ, I think the word blood is perhaps one of the most important of the entire New Testament. Because without blood, there is no what? No remission of sins. So it says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins. This is the TLA, which is Traducción Lenguaje Actual. That would mean the Bible in current language. They've taken out some terms and they've changed it with a different words. It says, who purchased our liberty and pardoned our sins. Now, why is the word sangre, blood, not considered to be a current term? This Bible's name is the Bible in Current Language. That's literally the name. It's the translation in literal, in today's language. El lenguaje actual means today's language. What is uncurrent about blood? What is hard to understand about blood? And they've changed it. Who purchased our liberty and pardoned our sins? They've taken away the very blood of Christ. That's why I say the agenda behind these versions, I have to believe there is an agenda. It's to change doctrines, and we'll see another one too, where it comes almost to a workspace salvation. To take away the blood out of the Bible, this is a very, very grave and serious matter. So they have, there's no blood in this very text. As we just read, without blood, there's no remission of sins. Yeah, I think that's a fearful thing to translate something and actually take away the entire doctrine of the need of the blood of Christ that cleanses from all sin. Oh, I must have gone forward. Yeah, sorry about that. This is the text, there we go. 1 John 1 verse 9, a very well-known verse. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Is there anyone who here thinks that the word confess is a very difficult word? I don't think so either. But here we have in the same Bible in current language, here we have, if we recognize before God that we have sinned, we can be assured that he who is just will pardon us and wash us from our evil. What word of the change? Confess. Now it says recognize. If we recognize that we've sinned. I can think of many people in scripture who are not saved and who recognize their sins. Esau. Judas Iscariot, King Saul, they all recognized they had sinned, even before God. They recognized they had sinned. Judas, he very clearly recognized he had sinned. Judas Iscariot. But they'd missed one thing, they didn't confess their sins. They've changed the word confessed here. Now it's only recognize your sins. Isn't that a change in the very doctrines of grace? I've often said this in Latin America, if I go out in the street and ask anybody on the street, have you sinned? Who would dare say they've not sinned? Even people who aren't Christians will say, of course, we've all sinned, we're all humans. They would recognize that they've sinned. So this comes very close to a universal atonement. Because something like this can very clearly give way to the doctrine of universal regeneration. Everyone recognizes they've sinned. So if we recognize we've sinned, we can be assured, not just where it says we know, it says we can be assured. We can be fully assured that he who is just will pardon us and wash us from our evil. So you see how dangerous it can be. When once it gets into the hands of man to begin changing the very text of scripture, Be careful. Very quickly this will become something that is promoting the doctrines I want to promote rather than upholding the very sacred and holy word of God. May the Lord keep us in those tried and true ways. For the last few moments, I'd like to go over a little bit about the distribution. We've seen a tremendous interest in the Spanish Bible Project, and that's been most humbling. Throughout the years, we've gone out and sought people by way of conferences and other literature that we have online, but also people have come and sought us. We get many, many requests each day from Latin America asking, when will you have the Bible? Do you have the Bible ready? When will it be done? We're following you, we're supporting you, we're praying for you. Each and every day it's a very encouraging thing to see the interest and the hunger for the word of God in the Spanish language. So we have a very active distribution process as well. We have three full-time employees in Latin America, one in Argentina, one in Bolivia, one in Colombia, who are working there to help us distribute the word and all the materials we have in the Spanish language. We have the Gospel of John, the Gospel according to John. We have the New Testament printed. We've distributed many of those. Calendars, scripture leaflets, the very same scripture leaflets we have here, and those go out on a daily basis. They're printed in eight or nine countries in Latin America for the past at least five, six years in many countries, some of them more recently, such as Cuba. But we have a tremendous support base. And this is very encouraging to know that as we work on the revision, we know that there's a people ready and waiting for this project, particularly in Latin America. I wish I could say the same thing for Spain. Spain is where the Spanish Bible was produced by the Lord allowed Reina Valera to work in Spain. The gospel in Spain is, yeah, it's very scarce. The true churches in Spain, and there are many churches in Spain, but they're not interested at all in the very doctrines of race, and they're much less interested in the Bible that follows the received text. So we hope and pray there will be some reception in Spain, but we'll receive most of the interest in and prayerful support, I believe, is in Latin America. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people waiting for us and praying for us. We know that churches even carry our New Testament in the pew. They distribute them to the people because they want to use what they see as also the most faithful, the best Spanish Bible translation. We don't claim it to be the best because we know the Lord needs to crown it with His blessing, but we do know that this is probably the most thorough revision of the Spanish Bible that has ever taken place. When I look at some of the other versions that have been done, they were done In a couple of years, or even five years, we've been working 15 years with five people each and every day. Four people in the past few years, but we had five when it was the New Testament. It's been a very exhausting, meticulous work to compare every word to the original languages. It's a very exhausting work. Then we read it together, we read it separately as a team, each team member individually, and then we read it together. And then we send it out to revision committees throughout Latin America. So we have reading committees who are going over our work, not comparing to the Hebrew or Greek, but looking to see if the Spanish is right, if the syntax and grammar are all there, or also if there's perhaps a word that is not understood in a certain area or country. So we have these reading committees that send us back their input. Most of the time we don't take what they say, but sometimes they come up with some very, very good observations, even errors they found in a a missing accent or something like that, where we've seen it 15, 20 times as a team, but it still goes by us, and so they find things like that. So the work is very, very carefully reviewed by many, many people, and it's the prayer that this version will be essentially one that becomes the standard of the Spanish language. So as I've said, we've printed New Testaments as well. We hope to continue that distribution until we print the Bible, Lord willing, next year, if all goes well and the Lord allows that. We hope to print the Bible probably either in Latin America or in the United States, get a little bit closer to the actual area where we're distributing. and it's more logistically easier, it's easier logistically to print in Latin America. Perhaps Brazil, we don't know yet, but Mr. Arnold and myself are investigating those things to be able to print the Bible. But we've printed many New Testaments. We had actually 135,000 we've printed. We've distributed over 100,000 of those. This is, I believe, a picture from Colombia or Dominican Republic where they're distributing to families on the street who are also receiving this as an evangelical tool. We've also distributed many, many Gospels of John. That's the one on the right where it says Juan. That's the Spanish for John. And we continue to print those. Just last week, I authorized a printing in Chile and Bolivia for 5,000 each in those countries. Colombia, our brother Julio Rodriguez is here. I'm sorry. Julio Rodriguez is here. Pastor Julio Rodriguez is a He's a president of a seminary, a reformed seminary in Medellin, Colombia. He's also our representative in Colombia. He goes out and speaks in the country of Colombia and other countries as well. He was with me in Ecuador in June to speak about the work we're doing for the society. So he's here with us. He hopes to be at the annual general meeting and say a few words at that meeting. So we welcome him here also in our midst. He arrived yesterday from Colombia. Gospels of John, these are printed each and every month in Cuba as well. This is where I wrote that there's so many people who don't have the Bible in Cuba. Many people have the Bible on their telephone, but they don't have the actual hard copy of the Bible. So we tried to get them Gospels of John, New Testaments where possible. It's very difficult to import or export into Cuba, even from England or from other countries. So we've tried from different areas, but we ended up printing right in Cuba. That's been a really open door in Providence. So we see much interest, much hunger for the Word of God in Cuba despite all the opposition from the government. The government doesn't like our work and actually went after the man who was distributing for us in Cuba. I won't say his name here because I tried to shield him for obvious purposes, but he got, he ended up getting put in jail because of the work he was doing for the society. He was, and now he fled to the United States. He's there until he can, with his family, to try to get until the government is at least allowing him to speak about the Bible without being persecuted. So he actually received persecution for having worked for the society in Cuba. We hope and pray that the Lord will raise up others in Cuba as well who see the necessity of having God's word to distribute also to the Cuban people. Many, many calendars, each year we print calendars. I know for us, we don't use paper calendars very often, so it's very hard for us to understand, but in these countries, calendars are a very big thing. Every time I go to Latin America, I see that they frame the words of life text, where they have a picture and the text there, they frame those and put them on their walls of each year, of each month, so calendars are still very, very big, and it's a way of getting the word of God out. Also, the golden thoughts calendars, a verse for every day. So this is a picture of calendar distribution in a country in Latin America. I'm not sure exactly which country that is. And then, of course, using the means of the day, we have the Spanish website. We get over 13,000 monthly visits to people who just go on there. There's no sales of any articles yet, simply a way of going on there and learning about the project, learning about faithful Bible translation. We've translated many of the articles of TBS that have to do with general concepts of translation. We've translated those to Spanish and other articles that relate only to the Spanish. We have an article about how the NIV has used Proverbs to try to put in day-to-day proverbs like the men proposes God disposes or things like that or this mr. Nobody mr. Somebody things like that We have an article that explains all that to the people to show them not in a way of attacking the NIV Bible by no means but simply to show how this isn't what the Lord said this is an accurate reading of Scripture So we have over 13,000 monthly visits, mobile device compatibility, SSL security, so people can go on there and actually go there without having any security issues, and many online articles and videos, things like that. And then finally, we have a very important thing in our day, when people don't have the Bible often, is the social media. They can actually read the Bible online. They can find Not on the online website, which we'll see in the next slide. Social media, 164,000 followers on Facebook. These are people who we upload each day a verse of the Bible. So these people aren't following us for any gimmicks. They're following us for the word. We simply upload verses of the Bible each day, and then if we have a new article, we upload that also to social media, Instagram, the Daily Bible Verses. That's what they see when they actually like this social medium that we have. It's very much interesting. We also keep them abreast about the conferences we do, what we've spoken about, where we will be speaking. We announce the conferences there and We've had upwards of 800 at a conference already in places like Columbia and Chile. Very, very well attended. They're always free, open to the public. We just try to be very, we always meet in a, normally a neutral location, so it's a rented hall or something, not to be necessarily affiliated with any, this church or that church. And that's really paid off for us, because then we get people who come from many denominations. The Bible isn't only for the Reformed or only for the Baptists, it's for everyone. So we get people from all denominations to come and to hear about the faithful translation of God's word. And finally, what I was just speaking about is the, we have the New Testament online, which is also free. It's the online Bible app, and many, many people have downloaded this app. Thousands and thousands of people use this when they read their Bible on their telephone, for example, if at work or somewhere reading the Bible, don't have the Bible at hand, they read this in places like Cuba, they read this because most of the people don't, they have a telephone from China, But most of the people in Cuba, even many pastors, don't have the Bible in print. So they use this. I've seen many pastors in Cuba use the Bible to preach from, the Bible on their telephone. So this is a very big tool in Latin America, especially Cuba, countries like Cuba and where there's much poverty and also government repression. So that's a little overview of the entire Spanish Bible project. I know I've tried to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. I hope that it's been interesting to you, but above all, we covet your prayers for the forthcoming printing of the Spanish Bible and that it may be blessed to the salvation of many and to God's honor and glory. Thank you very much.