Textus Receptus Bibles
King James Bible 1611
| 31:1 | Nowe the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell downe slaine in mount Gilboa. |
| 31:2 | And the Philistines followed hard vpon Saul, and vpon his sonnes, and the Philistines slewe Ionathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua, Sauls sonnes. |
| 31:3 | And the battell went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of the archers. |
| 31:4 | Then said Saul vnto his armour bearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these vncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse mee. But his armour bearer would not, for he was sore afraid: therfore Saul tooke a sword, & fell vpon it. |
| 31:5 | And when his armour bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise vpon his sword, and died with him. |
| 31:6 | So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armour bearer, and all his men that same day together. |
| 31:7 | And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Iordane, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sonnes were dead, they forsooke the cities and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt in them. |
| 31:8 | And it came to passe on the morrow when the Philistines came to strip the slaine, that they found Saul, and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. |
| 31:9 | And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about to publish it in the house of their idoles, and among the people. |
| 31:10 | And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth: and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan. |
| 31:11 | And when the inhabitants of Iabesh Gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul: |
| 31:12 | All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and tooke the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sonnes from the wall of Bethshan, and came to Iabesh, and burnt them there. |
| 31:13 | And they tooke their bones, and buried them vnder a tree at Iabesh, and fasted seuen dayes. |
King James Bible 1611
The commissioning of the King James Bible took place at a conference at the Hampton Court Palace in London England in 1604. When King James came to the throne he wanted unity and stability in the church and state, but was well aware that the diversity of his constituents had to be considered. There were the Papists who longed for the English church to return to the Roman Catholic fold and the Latin Vulgate. There were Puritans, loyal to the crown but wanting even more distance from Rome. The Puritans used the Geneva Bible which contained footnotes that the king regarded as seditious. The Traditionalists made up of Bishops of the Anglican Church wanted to retain the Bishops Bible.
The king commissioned a new English translation to be made by over fifty scholars representing the Puritans and Traditionalists. They took into consideration: the Tyndale New Testament, the Matthews Bible, the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible. The great revision of the Bible had begun. From 1605 to 1606 the scholars engaged in private research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge (16 inch tall) pulpit folios known today as "The 1611 King James Bible" came off the printing press.