Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 3:1 | After this opened Iob his mouth, and cursed his daye, |
| 3:2 | and sayde: |
| 3:3 | lost be that daye, wherin I was borne: and the night, in the which it was sayde: there is a manchilde conceaued. |
| 3:4 | The same daye be turned to darcknesse, and not regarded of God from aboue, nether be shyned vpo wt light: |
| 3:5 | but be couered with darcknesse, and the shadowe of death. Let the dymme cloude fall vpon it, and let it be lapped in with sorowe. |
| 3:6 | Let the darckstorme ouercome ye night, let it not be reckened amonge the dayes off the yeare, ner counted in the monethes. |
| 3:7 | Despysed be that night, and discommended: let them that curse the daye, |
| 3:8 | geue it their curse also, euen those that be ready to rayse vp Leuiathan. |
| 3:9 | Let the starres be dymme thorow darcknesse of it. Let it loke for light, but let it se none, nether the rysynge vp of the fayre mornynge: |
| 3:10 | because it shut not vp the wombe that bare me, ner hyd these sorowes fro myne eyes. |
| 3:11 | Alas, why dyed I not in ye byrth? Why dyd not I perysh, as soone as I came out of my mothers wobe? |
| 3:12 | Why set they me vpo yeir knees? Why gaue they me suck with their brestes? |
| 3:13 | Then shulde I now haue lyen still, I shulde haue slepte, and bene at rest: |
| 3:14 | like as the kynges ad lordes of ye earth, which buylde them selues speciall places: |
| 3:15 | As the prynces that haue greate substaunce of golde, & their houses full of syluer. |
| 3:16 | O that I vtterly had no beynge, or were as a thige borne out of tyme (that is put asyde) ether as yonge children, which neuer sawe the light. |
| 3:17 | There must the wicked ceasse from their tyranny, there soch as are ouerlaboured, be at rest: |
| 3:18 | there are those letten out fre, which haue bene in preson, so that they heare nomore the voyce of the oppressoure: |
| 3:19 | There are small and greate: the bonde man, and he that is fre fro his master. |
| 3:20 | Wherfore is the light geuen, to him that is in mysery? and life vnto them, that haue heuy hertes? |
| 3:21 | (Which longe for death, and it commeth not: for yf they might fynde their graue, |
| 3:22 | they wolde be maruelous glad, as those that dygge vp treasure) |
| 3:23 | To the man whose waye is hyd, which God kepeth backe from him. |
| 3:24 | This is the cause, that I syghe before I eate, and my roaringes fall out like a water floude. |
| 3:25 | For the thynge that I feared, is come vpon me: and the thynge that I was afrayed of, is happened vnto me. |
| 3:26 | Was I not happy? Had I not quyetnesse? Was I not in rest? And now commeth soch mysery vpon me. |
Coverdale Bible 1535
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete English translation of the Bible to contain both the Old and New Testament and translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. The later editions (folio and quarto) published in 1539 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1539 folio edition carried the royal license and was, therefore, the first officially approved Bible translation in English.
Tyndale never had the satisfaction of completing his English Bible; but during his imprisonment, he may have learned that a complete translation, based largely upon his own, had actually been produced. The credit for this achievement, the first complete printed English Bible, is due to Miles Coverdale (1488-1569), afterward bishop of Exeter (1551-1553).
The details of its production are obscure. Coverdale met Tyndale in Hamburg, Germany in 1529, and is said to have assisted him in the translation of the Pentateuch. His own work was done under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell, who was anxious for the publication of an English Bible; and it was no doubt forwarded by the action of Convocation, which, under Archbishop Cranmer's leading, had petitioned in 1534 for the undertaking of such a work.
Coverdale's Bible was probably printed by Froschover in Zurich, Switzerland and was published at the end of 1535, with a dedication to Henry VIII. By this time, the conditions were more favorable to a Protestant Bible than they had been in 1525. Henry had finally broken with the Pope and had committed himself to the principle of an English Bible. Coverdale's work was accordingly tolerated by authority, and when the second edition of it appeared in 1537 (printed by an English printer, Nycolson of Southwark), it bore on its title-page the words, "Set forth with the King's most gracious license." In licensing Coverdale's translation, King Henry probably did not know how far he was sanctioning the work of Tyndale, which he had previously condemned.
In the New Testament, in particular, Tyndale's version is the basis of Coverdale's, and to a somewhat less extent this is also the case in the Pentateuch and Jonah; but Coverdale revised the work of his predecessor with the help of the Zurich German Bible of Zwingli and others (1524-1529), a Latin version by Pagninus, the Vulgate, and Luther. In his preface, he explicitly disclaims originality as a translator, and there is no sign that he made any noticeable use of the Greek and Hebrew; but he used the available Latin, German, and English versions with judgment. In the parts of the Old Testament which Tyndale had not published he appears to have translated mainly from the Zurich Bible. [Coverdale's Bible of 1535 was reprinted by Bagster, 1838.]
In one respect Coverdale's Bible was groundbreaking, namely, in the arrangement of the books of the. It is to Tyndale's example, no doubt, that the action of Coverdale is due. His Bible is divided into six parts -- (1) Pentateuch; (2) Joshua -- Esther; (3) Job -- "Solomon's Balettes" (i.e. Canticles); (4) Prophets; (5) "Apocrypha, the books and treatises which among the fathers of old are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other books of the Bible, neither are they found in the canon of the Hebrew"; (6) the New Testament. This represents the view generally taken by the Reformers, both in Germany and in England, and so far as concerns the English Bible, Coverdale's example was decisive.