3.  The Holman Christian Standard Bible—The HCSB has become my second favorite modern translation. Although it comes from a different family of manuscripts I find it a great companion to the NKJV.

4. The English Standard Version—An excellent and easy to read translation. A very accurate translation taken from a different family of manuscripts than the NKJV and KJV. It is quickly gaining popularity and use.

5.  The New American Standard Bible—A literal translation from the same set of manuscripts as the ESV and HCSB. It does not read as smoothly as the ESV, but is still the preferred Bible in many seminaries and Bible colleges.

6.  The Amplified Bible—A translation that uses additional English words to convey the full meaning of Scripture to those who don't have the knowledge of the original languages. Using the word-for-word American Standard Version as a reference text, the Amplified Bible uses additional words to communicate the nuances of meaning from the original texts. These "amplification" words are offset from the text by brackets or parentheses. It attempts to take both word meaning and context into account in order to accurately translate the original text from one language into another. Not as reliable as the above translations.