I think the ESV folks may be coming out with the preaching and reading Bible I’ve been looking for. They’re calling it the Single Column Legacy Bible. The text isn’t cluttered with superscript references or even a reference column to the side—the only downfalls of my current favorite Bible.
It has wide margins for at least some note-taking, though I’m a little conflicted about this because the headings are also in the margins. I do wonder if they would do better in the text itself, lest my notes cause the headings to be lost in clutter I create.
But then how many notes am I likely to write when I do everything electronically already? I don’t know.
A lot of factors go into choosing the ideal Bible!
My ideal Bible would be an ESV text like that with the verse numbers on the side like the New English Bible. I still enjoy my (now out-of-print) “Books of the Bible” TNIV, too.