Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 7:1 | My sonne, kepe my wordes, & laye vp my comaundemetes by the. |
| 7:2 | Kepe my comaundemetes & my lawe, eue as the aple of thine eye, & thou shalt lyue. |
| 7:3 | Bynde them vpon thy fyngers, & wryte the in the table of thine hert. |
| 7:4 | Saye vnto wysdome: thou art my sister, and call vnderstondinge thy kynswoman: |
| 7:5 | that she maye kepe ye fro ye strauge woma, & fro ye harlot which geueth swete wordes. |
| 7:6 | For out of the wyndowe of my house I loked thorow the trelies, |
| 7:7 | & behelde the simple people: & amonge other yonge folkes I spyed one yonge foole |
| 7:8 | goinge ouer the stretes, by the corner in the waye towarde the harlottes house |
| 7:9 | in the twylight of of the euenynge, when it begane now to be night and darcke. |
| 7:10 | And beholde, there mett him a woma in an harlottes apparell |
| 7:11 | (a disceatfull, waton & an vnstedfast woma: whose fete coude not abyde in ye house, |
| 7:12 | now is she without, now i ye stretes, & lurketh i euery corner) |
| 7:13 | she caught ye yoge ma, kyssed him & was not ashamed, sayege: |
| 7:14 | I had a vowe to paye, & this daye I perfourme it. |
| 7:15 | Therfore came I forth to mete the, that I might seke thy face, and so I haue founde the. |
| 7:16 | I haue deckte my bed with coueringes & clothes of Egipte. |
| 7:17 | My bed haue I made to smell of Myrre, Aloes and Cynamom. |
| 7:18 | Come, let vs lye together, & take oure pleasure till it be daye light. |
| 7:19 | For the good man is not at home, he is gone farre of. |
| 7:20 | He hath taken the bagg of moneye with him, who can tell whe he cometh home? |
| 7:21 | Thus with many swete wordes she ouercame him, and with hir flateringe lippes she wanne him. |
| 7:22 | Immediatly he foloweth her, as it were an oxeled to the slaughter (and like as it were to the stockes, where fooles are punyshed) |
| 7:23 | so longe till she hath wounded his lyuer with hir darte: like as yf a byrde haisted to the snare, not knowinge that the parell of his life lyeth there vpo. |
| 7:24 | Heare me now therfore (o my sonne) and marcke the wordes of my mouth. |
| 7:25 | Let not thine herte wandre in hir wayes, & be not thou disceaued in hir pathes. |
| 7:26 | For many one hath she wouded and cast downe, yee many a stronge ma hath she slayne. |
| 7:27 | Hir house is the waye vnto hell, where men go downe to the chambers of death. |
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.