Textus Receptus Bibles
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
| 17:1 | The burden of Damascus. Beholde, Damascus is taken away from being a citie, for it shall be a ruinous heape. |
| 17:2 | The cities of Aroer shall be forsaken: they shall be for the flockes: for they shall lye there, and none shall make them afraide. |
| 17:3 | The munition also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdome from Damascus, and the remnant of Aram shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, sayeth the Lord of hostes. |
| 17:4 | And in that day the glorie of Iaakob shall be impouerished, and the fatnes of his flesh shalbe made leane. |
| 17:5 | And it shalbe as when the haruest man gathereth the corne, and reapeth the eares with his arme, and he shall be as he that gathereth the eares in the valley of Rephaim. |
| 17:6 | Yet a gathering of grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an oliue tree, two or three beries are in the top of the vpmost boughes, and foure or fiue in the hie branches of the fruite thereof, sayeth the Lord God of Israel. |
| 17:7 | At that day shall a man looke to his maker, and his eyes shall looke to the holy one of Israel. |
| 17:8 | And hee shall not looke to the altars, the workes of his owne hands, neither shall he looke to those thinges, which his owne fingers haue made, as groues and images. |
| 17:9 | In that day shall the cities of their strength be as the forsaking of boughes and branches, which they did forsake, because of the children of Israel, and there shall be desolation. |
| 17:10 | Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy saluation, and hast not remembred the God of thy strength, therefore shalt thou set pleasant plantes, and shalt graffe strange vine branches: |
| 17:11 | In the day shalt thou make thy plant to growe, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seede to florish: but the haruest shall be gone in the day of possession, and there shalbe desperate sorrowe. |
| 17:12 | Ah, the multitude of many people, they shall make a sounde like the noyse of the sea: for the noyse of the people shall make a sounde like the noyse of mightie waters. |
| 17:13 | The people shall make a sounde like the noise of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee farre off, and shalbe chased as the chaffe of the mountaines before the winde, and as a rolling thing before the whirlewinde. |
| 17:14 | And loe, in the euening there is trouble: but afore the morning it is gone. This is the portion of them that spoyle vs, and the lot of them that robbe vs. |
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
The Geneva Bible is one of the most influential and historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century Protestantism and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan. The language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous and because of this, most readers strongly preferred this version at the time.
The Geneva Bible was produced by a group of English scholars who, fleeing from the reign of Queen Mary, had found refuge in Switzerland. During the reign of Queen Mary, no Bibles were printed in England, the English Bible was no longer used in churches and English Bibles already in churches were removed and burned. Mary was determined to return Britain to Roman Catholicism.
The first English Protestant to die during Mary's turbulent reign was John Rogers in 1555, who had been the editor of the Matthews Bible. At this time, hundreds of Protestants left England and headed for Geneva, a city which under the leadership of Calvin, had become the intellectual and spiritual capital of European Protestants.
One of these exiles was William Whittingham, a fellow of Christ Church at Oxford University, who had been a diplomat, a courtier, was much traveled and skilled in many languages including Greek and Hebrew. He eventually succeeded John Knox as the minister of the English congregation in Geneva. Whittingham went on to publish the 1560 Geneva Bible.
This version is significant because, it came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids, which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, indices, as well as other included features, all of which would eventually lead to the reputation of the Geneva Bible as history's very first study Bible.