There are many good Bible translations: ASV, BBE, CEV, KJV, LITV, NKJV, NIV, and the Amplified, just to name a few. If you read several, generally you will gain an excellent understanding of the scripture you are trying to understand. As to accuracy, this lies between the KJV, NIV, and NKJV. The Amplified tells you a list of words a certain phrase could mean, which I like, but it leaves room for error. The NKJV is just a somewhat modernized version of the KJV, so we can treat them as the same version, basically. So it's down to the NIV and the KJV. Really, the KJV is the most accurate. The way the KJV was transcribed was impeccable. They had a group of scribes copying the same text. If one of them made just one little error, they destroyed everyone's work and started from scratch. As accurate as it is, however, it is still somewhat confusing, with the Elizabethan style speech. The NIV is very accurate, but they changed certain things which they thought was simply an error. For example, in one place (forgive me but I can't think of the reference right off hand) the KJV talks about Solomon having 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, while in a different scripture is says that Solomon has 40,000 stalls for the horses. When the NIV wrote this, they thought it was a mere error and corrected it. Such was not the case. One author wrote of stalls which the horses shared with chariots, which numbered 4,000, while another wrote of stalls which contained just horses, which numbered 40,000. Yet most people understand this to be an error, a contradiction in the Bible, including the authors of the NIV. They are, however, wrong. Now, on the same token, the NIV has corrected errors with the KJV. Like in one place where it talks about the "fowls" in the KJV. I understand this word "fowls" is, in the Hebrew, actually a more general word, meaning "creatures." The NIV corrected this. So, really, I suppose it's up to the reader. If the reader is really seeking God on any particular verse, I'm sure He'll reveal the true understanding of it.