Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 3:1 | A prayer of the prophet Abacuc for the ignoraunt. |
| 3:2 | O Lorde, when I herde speake of ye, I was afrayed. The worke yt thou hast taken in honde, shalt thou perfourme in his tyme, O LORDE: and when thy tyme commeth, thou shalt declare it. In thy very wrath thou thinkest vpon mercy. |
| 3:3 | God commeth from Theman, and the holy one from the mount of Pharan. Sela. |
| 3:4 | His glory couereth the heauens, and the earth is full of his prayse. His shyne is as ye sonne, & beames of light go out of his hondes, there is his power hid. |
| 3:5 | Destruccio goeth before him, and burnynge cressettes go from his fete. |
| 3:6 | He stondeth, & measureth the earth: He loketh, & the people consume awaye, the moutaynes of ye worlde fall downe to powlder, and the hilles are fayne to bowe them selues, for his goinges are euerlastinge and sure. |
| 3:7 | I sawe, that the pauilions of the Morians and the tentes of the londe of Madian were vexed for weerynesse. |
| 3:8 | Wast thou not angrie (o LORDE) in the waters? was not thy wrath in the floudes, and thy displeasure in the see? yes, whe thou sattest vpon thine horse, and when thy charettes had the victory. |
| 3:9 | Thou shewdest thy bowe opely, like as thou haddest promised with an ooth vnto the trybes. Sela. Thou didest deuyde the waters of the earth. |
| 3:10 | When the mountaynes saw the, they were afrayed, ye water streame wete awaye: the depe made a noyse at the liftinge vp of thine honde. |
| 3:11 | The Sonne and Mone remayned still in their habitacion. Thine arowes wente out glisteringe, and thy speares as the shyne of the lightenynge. |
| 3:12 | Thou trodest downe the londe in thine anger, and didest throsshe the Heithen in thy displeasure. |
| 3:13 | Thou camest forth to helpe thy people, to helpe thine anoynted. Thou smotest downe the heade in the house of the vngodly, & discoueredest his foundacions, eue vnto ye necke of him. Sela. |
| 3:14 | Thou cursest his septers, the captayne of his men of warre: which come as a stormy wynde to scatre me abrode, & are glad when they maye eat vp ye poore secretly. |
| 3:15 | Thou makest a waye for thine horses in the see, euen in the mudde of greate waters. |
| 3:16 | Whe I heare this, my body is vexed, my lippes tremble at ye voyce therof, my bones corruppe, I am afrayed where I stonde. O that I might rest in the daye of trouble, that I might go vp vnto oure people, which are alredy prepared. |
| 3:17 | For the fyge trees shal not be grene, & the vynes shal beare no frute. The laboure of ye olyue shalbe but lost, and the londe shall bringe no corne: the shepe shalbe taken out of ye folde, and there shalbe no catell in ye stalles. |
| 3:18 | But as for me, I wil be glad in the LORDE, and will reioyce in God my Sauioure. |
| 3:19 | The LORDE God is my strength, he shall make my fete as the fete of hertes: & he which geueth ye victory, shal bringe me to my hye places, synginge vpon my psalmes. |
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.