Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 27:1 | Then the LORDE with his heuye, great and loge swearde shal vyset Leuiatha, that invincible serpet: eue Leuiatha yt croked serpent, and shal slaye the Wallfish in ye see. |
| 27:2 | At the same tyme shal me synge of the vynyarde of Muscatel. |
| 27:3 | I the LORDE kepe it, and water it in due season. I watch daye & night, that no man breake in to it. I beare no euel wil in my mynde. |
| 27:4 | Who will compell me, that I greatly forgettinge all faithfulnesse, shulde burne it vp at once wt thornes & bushes? |
| 27:5 | Or who will enforce me to kepe or make peace? |
| 27:6 | It wil come to this poynte, yt Iacob shalbe rooted againe, and Israel shalbe grene & beare floures, & they shal fyll ye whole worlde wt their frute. |
| 27:7 | Smyteth he not his smyter, as euel as he is smytte himself? Destroieth he not ye murtherers, as he is murthured? |
| 27:8 | Euery ma recopenseth wt ye measure yt he receaueth: He museth vpo his sore wynde, as vpo the dayes of extreme heate. |
| 27:9 | And therfore shal the iniquite of Iacob be thus reconciled. And so shal he take awaye all ye frute of his synnes. As for aulter stones, he shal make them all as stones beaten to poulder: the Groues and Idols shal not stonde. |
| 27:10 | The stronge cities shalbe desolate, and ye fayre cities shalbe left like a wildernes. The catel shal fede and lie there, and the shepe shal eate it vp. |
| 27:11 | Their haruest shal be brent, their wyues which were their bewtie when they came forth: shalbe defyled. For it is a people without vnderstodinge, and therfore he yt created them, shal not fauoure them: and he yt made them, shal not be merciful to the. |
| 27:12 | In yt tyme shal ye LORDE shute from ye swifte water of Euphrates, vnto ye ryuer of Egipte. And there shal the children be chosen out one by one. |
| 27:13 | Then shal the greate trompet be blowen, so that those which haue bene destroyed in the Assirians londe, and those that be scatred abrode in Egipte: shal come & worshipe the LORDE at Ierusale, vpo the holy mount. |
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.