Do Bible translations matter?

If one believes that God inspired, in the first instance, both the writing of the Hebrew scriptures and the writing of the Greek scriptures, and if one believes that :

all scripture is given by inspiration of God, II Timothy 3:16, KJV,

and if one is aware that there is an enemy who will, by every available means and by every available agency, seek to undermine, duplicate fallaciously, subtly alter and utterly subvert that holy, pure, unique word of God . . .

. . . then (to answer your question) of course it matters what words we imbibe into our minds and heart and souls.

It matters above all else in this life : that we might (through God's own inspired word)

know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. John 17:3, KJV.

As also born again Christian, I can offer you some insight, although I'm not sure this will be a suitable question for this website format overall.

Does Bible translation matter? Yes and no.

Bibles tend to be weighed according to two different qualities. Each translation is a mixture of the two. They are "Word for word" and "Thought for Thought".

A pure word for word translation of the greek/hebrew would be basically unreadable, because they do not use the same grammar, and all their words do not match 100% to english words. This makes pure word for word translations pretty uncommon, and not super helpful to the average reader. The best example of this you can probably get is what they call "interlinear" bibles, where they have the greek, and also a rough english translation side by side for each line.

The second is "thought for thought". This is the idea that the translator will read the greek text, and then capture the "thought" or "meaning" and translate it into english for you. This is a great idea, but runs the risk of the translator mixing his personal interpretation into the actual text. One of the more extreme examples of this would be a "version" like "The Message". Where the author has taken the liberty of drastically expanding most verses, in a way which makes them very readable, but adds considerably to the actual text.

The key to finding a good translation, is being convinced of the "accuracy" or mostly word for word comformity, while also being presented in English that is practical for actual reading.

for example, you could just stare at the original greek all day, and avoid translations, but if you don't understand greek thats not very helpful.

I first read the entire Bible doing a "reading plan" in the 'NLT' or "New Living Translation".

This Bible translation falls more under the "Thought for Thought" category than many evangelical Christians are comfortable with. At the time, I didn't know anything about this, but I can say that I really learned a lot from reading this version of the bible.

One small downside, is you are rarely familiar with commonly quoted Bible verses, because people usually use older more familiar phrasings such as found in the KJV. While the ideas are (hopefully) the same, the phraseology will be different.

I later fell in with a crowd which rather religiously uses the NKJV "New King James Version". Its a touch up of the king james version from the 80's. Its much more readable than the KJV, but less readable than the NLT.

I benefitted greatly from studying the NKJV, which is a more "word for word" translation, after having fallen in love with the NLT. Personally, I find it more fitting for closer reading and study, while less approachable for fast reading and overview.

The key, as mentioned in the comments to check various translations. You will find that in general, There are a handful of good translations that mostly agree on everything. The differences are mainly stylistic, and not much else. (NKJV, ESV, NASB, NIV , etc).

If you download the bible app for your phone, you can compare multiple translations instantly. If ever I have a question about a certain verse, this is always my first check.