阅读国外的英语故事我们可以了解外国的文化环境以及历史变迁，还能提高自己的英语水平，这种英语的积累是很有必要的。在选择要阅读的英语故事的时候，可以根据自己的水平以及兴趣来决定，如果你的英语基础不太好，还可以看带翻译的英语故事。就像下面这两篇文章。

The Story of Moses, the Leader of the Jewish People

犹太民族领袖摩西的故事

Some time during the twentieth century before our era, a small and unimportant tribe of Semitic shepherds had left its old home and moved westward, trying to find new pastures. This tribe of shepherds was known as the Hebrews or, as we call them, the Jews. They had wandered far and wide for many years before they had been given shelter in Egypt.

公元前2000年的某一天，一支小而不重要的闪米特游牧部落踏上了流浪的旅程。这支游牧部落被称为希伯来人，我们通常叫他们犹太人。他们辗转而行，经过长时间的悲惨漂泊之后，终于在埃及得到了一小块栖身之地。

For more than five centuries they had dwelt among the Egyptians and when their adopted country had been overrun by the Hyksos marauders they had managed to make themselves usetul to the foreign invader and had been left in the undisturbed possession of their grazing fields. But after a long war of independence the Egyptians had driven the Hyksos out of the valley of the Nile and then the Jews had come upon evil times for they had been degraded to the rank of common slaves and they had been forced to work on the royal roads and on the Pyramids.And as the frontiers were guarded by the Egyptian soldiers it had been impossible for the Jews to escape.

他们在埃及居住了500多年，一直与当地居民和睦相处。后来当接纳他们的国家被希克索斯人征服时，他们转而竭力为外国侵略者效芳，总算使自己的牧场得以保全。经过长期的独立战争，埃及人将希克索斯人赶出了尼罗河谷。此时，犹太人噩运临头了。他们被贬为奴隶，破迫在皇家大道和金字塔工地上像牛马一样干活。并目，由于边境上有埃及士兵的严密看守，犹太人根本不可能逃出埃及。

After many years of suffering they were saved from their miserable fate by a young Jew, called Moses, who for a long time had dwelt in the desert and there had learned to appreciate the simple virtues of his earliest ancestors, who had kept away from cities and city-life and had refused to let themselves be corrupted by the ease and the luxury of a foreign civilisatitm.

历经多年的磨难，终于有一位名叫摩西的年轻犹太人带领族人逃出了苦海。摩西曾常年居住在沙漠，那里的牧民遵循祖先的传统，拒绝被外国文明的安逸奢华所污染。

Moses decided to bring his people back to a love of the ways of the patriarchs. He succeeded in evading the Egyptian troops that were sent after him and led his fellow tribesmen into the heart of the plain at the foot of Mount Sinai. During his long and lonely life in the desert, he had learned to revere the strength of the great God of the Thunder and the Storm, who ruled the high heavens and upon whom the shepherds depended for life and light and breath. This God, one of the many divinities who were widely worshipped in western Asia, was called Jehovah, and through the teaching of Moses, he became the sole Master of the Hebrew race.

摩西很欣赏祖先们的质朴美德，决意唤回族人对它们的热爱。他成功地躲过了埃及追乓，带领族人来到西奈山脚下的平原中心。在漫长、孤单的沙漠中，他学会了敬畏闪电与风暴之神的力量。这位神统治着天庭，牧人的生命、取火和呼吸都依赖他。此神是西亚广受崇拜的众神之一，名为耶和华。通过摩西对族人的教诲，耶和华成为希伯来民族唯一的主宰。

One day, Moses disappeared from the camp of the Jews. It was whispered that he had gone away canying two tablets of rough-hewn stone. That afternoon. the top of the mountain was lost to sight. The darkness of a terrible storm hid it from the eye of man. But when Moses returned, behold! There stood engraved upon the tablets the words which Jehovah had spoken unto the people of Israel amidst the crash of his thunder and the blinding flashes of his lightning. And from that moment, Jehovah was recognised by all the Jews as the Highest Master of their Fate, the only True Gud, who had taught them how to live holy lives when he bade them to follow the wise lessons of his Ten Commandments.

一天，摩西突然离开犹太人的营地不见了，有人传言他是带着两块粗石板出去的。当天下午，鸟云蔽日，风暴大作，人们望不见西奈山的山顶。可当摩西返回时，看啊，两块粗石板上已经划刻满了耶和华在电闪雷呜中对以色列民族说的话。从这时起，耶和华被所有犹太人奉为他们命运的最高王宰。唯一的真神。他教犹太人如何按十诫的训示去过圣洁的生活。

They followed Moses when he bade them continue their journey through the desert. They obeyed him when he fold them what to eat and drink and what to avoid that they might keep well in the hot climate. And finally after many years of wandering they came to a land which seemed pleasant and prosperous. It was called Palestine. Unfortunately, the mainland. Palestine, was already inhabited by another Semitic race, called the Canaanites. But the Jews forced their way into the valleys and built themselves cities and constructed

a mighty temple in a town which they named Jerusalem, the Home of Peace.

摩西带领犹太人继续其穿越沙漠的旅程，人们都跟随着他。摩西告诉他们该吃什么，喝什么以及怎样做才能在炎热气候中保持身体健康，他们都一一遵从。经过多年的艰难跋涉，犹太人终于来到一块快乐而富饶的土地。此地名为巴勒斯坦，很不幸的是，此时的巴勒斯坦内陆已经被另一支闪米特部族迦南人占据。然而犹太人奋力冲开道路，进入山谷，建立起许多城市。他们修筑了一座敬奉耶和华的宏伟庙宇，并将庙宇所在的城市命名为“耶路撒冷”，意思是“和平之乡”。

As for Moses, he was no longer the leader of his people. He had been allowed to see the mountain ridges of Palestine from afar. Then he had closed his tired eyes for all time. He had worked faithfully and hard to please Jehovah. Not only had he guided his tribesmen out of foreign slavery into the tree and independent life of a new home but he had also made the Jews the first of all nations to worship a single God.

至于摩西，此时的他已不再是犹太人的领袖了。他安详地望着远方巴勒斯坦的群山，然后永远地闭上了疲倦的双眼。他一直虔诚而勤勉地工作，取悦耶和华。他不仅把族人从外国的奴役中带到了一个自由独立的新家园，还使犹太人成为历史上第一个敬奉唯一神的民族。

Noah's Ark

诺亚方舟

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and full of violence. So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy

all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But with you I will make a covenant. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood, make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. You shall go into the ark,you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives with you. And you shall bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female. to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take and store every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.'

诺亚是一个正直的人，在当时所有人中无可挑剔。上帝看见整个世界腐朽了，到处充斥着暴力。于是上帝对诺亚说：“我要毁灭所有的人类，世上因为他们而充满着暴力。我一定要毁掉他们以及这个世界。我要让洪水在全世界泛滥，消灭天下所有活着的生命，以及地上有气息的万物。世上的一切都将消亡。但我要与你立约，你要用柏木为自己造一艘方舟，分一间一间地造，再把船的里里外外涂上松脂。你到时带着你的儿子们、妻子和儿媳一起进入方舟。你还要带上各种生物上船，每种两只，一雌一雄，在船上把它们喂养好。每种飞禽两只、每种走兽两只、每种爬虫两只。你还要带上各种吃的东西，储存在船上，作为你们和动物的食粮。”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

诺亚遵照上帝的话，一一照办了。

Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives. And into the ark with Noah went one pair, male and female, of all beasts, clean and unclean, of birds and of everything that crawls on the ground, two by two, as God had commanded.Towards the end of seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

当洪水袭击地面时，诺亚已经六百岁了。诺亚和他的儿子们、妻子和儿媳们都上了方舟。和他一起登上方舟的还有每种一对的动物，所有的走兽，洁净的和不洁净的，都是一雌一雄;所有的鸟类和地上的爬虫，也是一对一对的。按照上帝的吩咐它们都上了船。第七天结束的时候，洪水降临到大地。

On the seventeenth day of the second month, all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. find rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. The flood kept coming on the earth for forty days, and as the waters increased they lifted up the ark high above the ground.The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished-birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

第二个月的十七日那天，大深渊的所有泉源一齐喷发，天穹扩开， 大雨倾盆，不停地下了四十个昼夜。洪水泛滥了四十天，大水涨起来，把方舟托起;高高地升离地面。地面的水越涨越高，方舟在水面上漂流。水涨得淹没了天下所有的高山，一直涨到浸没高山二十英尺之深。陆地上一切有气息的生物都消亡了——鸟类、家禽、野兽、地面上的所有爬虫、所有人类。地面上每一个有生气的事物都被清除干净，唯独诺亚和在方舟上的妻儿、鸟兽爬虫活了下来。

The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

洪水泛滥达一百五十天之久。

向上面这两篇英语小故事，可以给孩子们看，锻炼他们的英语阅读水平。如果觉得难度偏大，家长可以帮助孩子学习，总之，养成了阅读英语故事的好习惯之后，对英语学习有着不小的帮助。当然，孩子还可以来沪江进行专业的英语学习，不同年龄段都将找到合适的课程。