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The New International Version (NIV) of the Bible is more of a thought-for-thought translation rather than a word-for-word or paraphrased translation. The original texts of the Bible were written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. The reason there are so many different translations is because in translating the original text into modern-day languages, translators must focus on providing one of the following: 1) A word-for-word translation which focuses on retaining the form and structure of the original text; 2) A thought-for-thought translation which focuses on the original meaning of the text; or, 3) A paraphrase of the original text to retain the original meaning of the text in a way that is easy for people to read and understand.

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