Textus Receptus Bibles
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
| 1:1 | The burden of Nineueh. The booke of the vision of Nahum the Elkeshite. |
| 1:2 | God is ielous, and the Lord reuengeth: the Lord reuengeth: euen the Lord of anger, the Lord will take vengeance on his aduersaries, and he reserueth wrath for his enemies. |
| 1:3 | The Lord is slow to anger, but he is great in power, and will not surely cleare the wicked: the Lord hath his way in ye whirlewind, and in the storme, and the cloudes are the dust of his feete. |
| 1:4 | He rebuketh the sea, and dryeth it, and he dryeth vp all the riuers: Bashan is wasted and Carmel, and the floure of Lebanon is wasted. |
| 1:5 | The mountaines tremble for him, and the hilles melt, and the earth is burnt at his sight, yea, the worlde, and all that dwell therein. |
| 1:6 | Who can stande before his wrath? or who can abide in the fiercenesse of his wrath? his wrath is powred out like fire, and the rockes are broken by him. |
| 1:7 | The Lord is good and as a strong hold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. |
| 1:8 | But passing ouer as with a flood, he will vtterly destroy the place thereof, and darknesse shall pursue his enemies. |
| 1:9 | What doe ye imagine against the Lord? he wil make an vtter destruction: affliction shall not rise vp the seconde time. |
| 1:10 | For he shall come as vnto thornes folden one in another, and as vnto drunkards in their drunkennesse: they shall be deuoured as stubble fully dryed. |
| 1:11 | There commeth one out of thee that imagineth euill against the Lord, euen a wicked counsellour. |
| 1:12 | Thus saith the Lord, Though they be quiet, and also many, yet thus shall they be cut off when he shall passe by: though I haue afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. |
| 1:13 | For nowe I will breake his yoke from thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder. |
| 1:14 | And the Lord hath giuen a commandement concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sowen: out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the grauen, and the molten image: I will make it thy graue for thee, for thou art vile. |
| 1:15 | Beholde vpon the mountaines the feete of him that declareth, and publisheth peace: O Iudah, keepe thy solemne feastes, perfourme thy vowes: for the wicked shall no more passe thorowe thee: he is vtterly cut off. |
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.