Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 3:1 | Heare, what the LORDE speaketh vnto you (o ye children of Israel) namely, vnto all ye trybes, who I brought out of Egipte, and sayde: |
| 3:2 | You only haue I accepted from all the generacions off the earth: therfore will I vyset you in all youre wickednesses. |
| 3:3 | Maye twaine walke together excepte they be agreed amonge them selues? |
| 3:4 | Doth a lyon roare in the wodde, excepte he haue a pray? Or crieth a lyons whelpe out of his denne, excepte he haue gotten somthige? |
| 3:5 | Doth a byrde fall in a snare vpo ye earth where no fouler is? Taketh a man his snare vp from the grounde, afore he catche somwhat? |
| 3:6 | Crie they out Alarum with the trompet in the cite, and the people not afrayed? Commeth there eny plage in a cite, without it be the LORDES doinge? |
| 3:7 | Now doth the LORDE God no maner of thinge, but he telleth his secrete before vnto his seruauntes ye prophetes. |
| 3:8 | When a lyon roareth, who will not be afrayed? Seynge then that the LORDE God himself speaketh, who will not prophecy? |
| 3:9 | Preach in the palaces at Asdod, and in the palaces off the londe off Egipte, and saye: gather you together vpon the moutaynes off Samaria, so shall ye se greate murthur and violent oppression amonge them: for why, they regarde not the thinge that is right, |
| 3:10 | sayeth the LORDE: they gather together euell gotten goodes, and laye vp robbery in their houses. |
| 3:11 | Therfore, thus sayeth the LORDE God: This londe shalbe troubled and beseged roude aboute, thy strength shalbe plucte from the, and thy palaces robbed. |
| 3:12 | Thus saieth the LORDE: like as an hyrdeman taketh two legges or a pece off an eare out off the Lyons mouth: Euen so the children of Israel (that dwell in Samaria, hauynge their couches in the corner, and their beddes at Damascus) shalbe plucte awaye. |
| 3:13 | Heare, and beare recorde in the house of Iacob (sayeth the LORDE God of hoostes) |
| 3:14 | that when I begynne to vyset the wickednesse of Israel, I will vyset ye aulters at Bethel also: so that the hornes of the aulter shalbe broken of, & fall to the groude. |
| 3:15 | As for the wynter house and sommer house, I will smyte them downe: and the houses of yuery, yee and many other houses shal perish, and be destroyed, sayeth the LORDE. |
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.