Here I'll Give You An Early Present of An Experience*

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
En la komenco Dio kreis la ĉielon kaj la teron. 
en la  kom-EN-tsoh  DEE-oh  KRAY-is  la  chee-EL-on  keye*  la TER-on

*(Like "eye" with a k in front of it.  Kaj is the word for "and" and is one of the most common words in the language). "Aj" is one of about six diphthongs in the language, they, like all Esperanto spelling is, are exactly phonetic.

And the earth was without-form and deserted
Kaj la tero estis senforma kaj dezerta,
kaj la  TER-oh  ES-tees  sen-FOR-ma  keye  de-ZER-ta

and darkness was over the void
kaj mallumo estis super la abismo;
keye  mal-LU-mo  EST-is  S00-per  la  ab-EES-mo

and the spirit of God floated above the water
kaj la spirito de Dio ŝvebis super la akvo.
keye  la  spee-REE-to  de  DEE-o  SCHVAY-bees  SU-per  la  AK-voh


The translation into Esperanto was by L. L. Zamenhof, who, though not a scripture scholar, was reportedly quite able to read Hebrew,which I believe he learned in Hebrew school.   Clearly, a language genius like him (I believe he spoke four, fluently and read in a number of others) had his Hebrew lessons take.

The transliteration is mine, I think it will get an American English speaker close to the standard Esperanto pronunciation.   A quick guide to pronouncing the vowels a, e, i, o, u is the sentence "Are There Three Or Two,

This was kind of fun, I think I'll keep it up.

For people who want to go faster, about the fastest way to get the basics is with this presentation of the Zabreb Method -with recordings - based on a scientifically accumulated word-frequency list, based on actual conversations taped at Esperanto gatherings with people from all over the world.  The conversations were transcribed and analyzed both for word-roots and grammatical affixes and the results tabulated to figure out the most essential ones.  I think their claim that in the 12 lessons they've encompassed about 95% of the language might be justified.

Though I would recommend you don't try to do it in 12 days as claimed at this, one site you can find the material on.  I'd take two or three days with each very short chapter, so a little over a month.  I'd write out the little stories (maybe a bit above the quality you'll find in most beginning language lessons). 

You could have a New Years resolution to learn a new language pretty much licked before then if you worked it right.

It won't get you all the way there but it will get you off and running instead of hobbling which would be the case with any "natural" language.   I don't get to speak with Esperantists often but when I do the experience feels a lot more natural than it does than when I speak French, which I do several times most weeks, there being a fairly large French speaking population in my state.  I don't have to worry about grammatical gender and irregular verbs because they don't exist in Esperanto.  You can learn to conjugate every single verb in the language in about fifteen minutes, half an hour if you don't pay attention.  The regularities of the language make it feel more like speaking your mother tongue because you don't have to worry about those things just like you mostly don't while speaking your own language.  I do interact with them online more, these days, many who don't speak or write English,  and it is a similarly natural feeling experience.

* Mi esperas ke vi trovas ke ĝi estas bona.