Textus Receptus Bibles
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
| 15:1 | And thee word of the Lord came vnto me, saying, |
| 15:2 | Sonne of man, what commeth of the vine tree aboue all other trees? and of the vine braunch, which is among the trees of ye forest? |
| 15:3 | Shall wood bee taken thereof to doe any worke? or wil men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? |
| 15:4 | Behold, it is cast in the fire to be consumed: the fire consumeth both the endes of it, and the middes of it is burnt. Is it meete for any worke? |
| 15:5 | Behold, when it was whole, it was meete for no worke: how much lesse shall it bee meete for any worke, when the fire hath consumed it, and it is burnt? |
| 15:6 | Therefore thus sayth the Lord God, As the vine tree, that is among the trees of the forest, which I haue giuen to the fire to be consumed, so will I giue the inhabitants of Ierusalem. |
| 15:7 | And I will set my face against them: they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall consume them: and ye shall know, that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them, |
| 15:8 | And when I make the lande waste, because they haue greatly offended, saith the Lord God. |
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.