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manuscripts, none of which carry us back beyond the æra of the Masoretic revision, in the seventh century after Christ; and that most of their various readings are either unimportant in themselves, or inappreciable in a translation. And though biblical scholars are unanimous in the opinion, that our present text is in many passages incorrect, they are by no means agreed as to the manner in which it is to be corrected. The present publication is intended for the use of a class of readers, who have no means of weighing critical evidence; and its purpose being practical, the Editors have, in doubtful cases, admitted the prescriptive right of a version, which two centuries and a half have rendered sacred to the religious mind of England. Its style and idiom have been carefully preserved, where change seemed the duty of a faithful translator.

In regard to the use of Italics, this revision differs somewhat from the Common Version. It has not been thought necessary to employ them, as is done in our Bibles, wherever the translation contains, a word which has no equivalent in the original; as, for instance, in the systematic omission in Hebrew of the substantive verb, and similar cases of merely grammatical idiom. Nor, again, are they used when words are inserted which are not now found in the present Hebrew text, but which the Editors believe, on the authority of manuscripts or versions, to have originally stood there. Thus, in Genesis iv. 8, the words "Let us go into the field," though wanting in the Hebrew, are printed in the common character, the author of the revision believing, on critical evidence, that they have been accidentally lost; on the other hand, in Joshua xi. 2, and other passages of the same book, the words "of the Jordan," which have no separate equivalent in the original, are added in Italics, because the word Arabah is here used in the Hebrew, not in the general sense of plain, but specifically of that great plain or valley through which the Jordan runs, from the Lake of

Gennesareth to the Dead Sea.

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No words of importance have ever been added, without such a notice to the readers.

After all that can be done to exhibit a faithful rendering of the Scriptures, obscurities will remain which only a commentary can remove. It has not been thought expedient, however, to add explanatory notes to this translation; but, should the undertaking be favourably received, a volume of brief notes might be added, in which the reasons of the changes introduced into the revision should be stated, and difficult passages be explained.

The late Rev. Charles Wellbeloved published some years ago a new translation of the Five Books of Moses, with Job and the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song, as a part of a Family Bible, which he did not complete. He had been engaged before his death in revising what he had published, with a view to its incorporation in the present work, but had proceeded no further than the end of Deuteronomy. He had, however, left in manuscript a revision of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, from which the translation of these books has been prepared by the Rev. John Kenrick. The Books of Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, have been undertaken by the Rev. George Vance Smith; the Books of Kings, Chronicles, Ezekiel, and Daniel, by the Rev. John Scott Porter. The Psalms and the other Books included in Mr. Wellbeloved's Bible will be printed from a revised copy of that work, and the Minor Prophets from a manuscript which he had prepared for the press several years before his death. It is expected that the whole will be comprised in three volumes,

Such a work as the present has, of course, not been undertaken without concert and mutual understanding among the persons engaged in it, and it is hoped that a general uniformity will by this means be preserved. Each translator, however, must be regarded as responsible only for his own share,

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Among independent translators, diversities of taste and opinion will necessarily exist, giving rise to varieties in their translations, but the sense of the original may be faithfully represented by different modes of expression.

The Authors of this revision have engaged in it with no view to any personal or party object, but solely in the hope of furnishing a correct and intelligible version of the Scriptures, and they commit their work to the judgment of the serious and candid reader, and to the blessing of Him whose Word is Truth.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

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CHAP. I.-In the beginning God created the heavens 2 and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters.

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And God said, "Let there be light:" and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good: and God separated 5 the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening came and the morning came, the first day.

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And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 And God made the firmament, and separated the waters below the firmament from the waters above the firmament: s and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening came and the morning came, the second day. And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land ap10 pear:" and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas: 11 and God saw that it was good. And God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, and herbs yielding seed, and fruittrees yielding fruit according to their kinds, the seed of which shall be in itself upon the earth: " and it was 12 SO. For the earth brought forth grass, and herbs yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which was in itself according to their kinds : 13 and God saw that it was good. And the evening came and the morning came, the third day.

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And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of

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heaven to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, days and years; and let them 15 be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth : and it was so. For God made two great 16 lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the smaller light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God 17 set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and 18 to separate the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening came and the morning came, 19 the fourth day.

And God said, "Let the waters swarm with living things, 20 and let flying creatures fly above the earth under the firmament of heaven:" and it was so. For God created great 21 sea animals, and all the moving things with which the waters swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind: and God saw that it was good. And 22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the fowl multiply on the earth." And the evening came and the morning came, the fifth 23 day.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures 24 according to their kinds, cattle, and creeping things, and wild beasts according to their kinds:" and it was so. For God 25 made the wild beasts according to their kinds, and cattle according to their kinds, and every thing that creepeth on the ground according to its kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, "Let us make man in our image, according 26 to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowls of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." So God created man in his own 27 image; in the image of God created he him. Male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God 28 said to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth,. and subdue it; and have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowls of heaven, and over the cattle, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God 29 said, "Lo, I give to you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the whole earth, and every tree, in which is fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for yourselves, and 30 for all the beasts of the earth and for all the fowls of heaven, and for every thing that creepeth upon the earth, in which is