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1 Cor. v. 5 (an 1638), 11 (an both books of 1629); 2 Cor. x. 11 (an 1629 Camb.); xii. 2, 5 (an both books of 1629); Gal. vi. 1 (an 1629 Camb.); Philem. 9 (an 1762), but such an one Job xiv. 3; Ecclus. vi. 14; x. 9; xx. 15; 2 Macc. vi. 27.

My and mine, thy and thine, should of course be used respectively as a and an before a consonant, or vowel, or h; but neither the original Translators nor later editors have shewn any knowledge of the fact, so that in the present volume it has been deemed advisable to follow the Bible of 1611 exactly in this respect, the earlier issue a little in preference to the other. The changes introduced in more recent books are apparently capricious or accidental, being as often wrong as right. Thus if my of 1611 is turned into mine before integrity Job xxvii. 5 in 1762, and mine correctly changed into my before head by the same, Luke vii. 46; the opposite alterations of my for mine before eyelids Job xvi. 16 in 1617, of thy for thine before eyes Job xv. 12 in 1769, and of thine for thy before hands 1 Macc. xv. 7 in 1629, prove clearly that they had no principle to guide them in the matter. Mutations of these forms made for the better in later Bibles will be seen in Deut. xvi. 15 and xviii. 4 (1769); Isai. lxiv. 8 (1629 Camb.); Ezek. xvi. 11 (1762); Zech. viii. 6 (1629 Camb.); Tobit ii. 13 and v. 14 (1629); Wisd. viii. 17 (1629); 1 Macc. ii. 18 (1629); Luke xiii. 12 (1616); 2 Cor. xi. 26 (1629, both books). Those changed for the worse are Deut. ii. 24 and xv. 7 (1769); Ruth ii. 13 (2nd) and 1 Sam. ii. 35 (1629, both books); Job xxxi. 7 (1762); xl. 4 (1629 Camb.); Ps. cxvi. 16 (later than 1638); Eccles. iii. 18 (1629 Lond.); 2 Esdr. x. 55 and Ecclus. v. 8 (1629); Ecclus. li. 2 (1629, 1630). These passages may be verified by comparing any modern Bible with the present volume.

The apparent solecisms also and unusual grammatical constructions of our standard of 1611 have been scrupulously retained, without any attempt to amend them. Such as they are, they comprise an integral part of the Translation, and preserve phrases once legitimate enough, which have since grown obsolete. Later editors have but ill spent their pains in partial attempts to remove or conceal them. Some, indeed, violate the concord of the verb with its subject, as Ex. ix. 31 “the flax and the barley was smitten,” as in the Hebrew: “tidings is brought” 2 Sam. xviii. 31 marg.: “thou wast he that leddest” 1 Chr. xi. 2: “earth and water was wont” Judith ii. 7 marg.: “the number of names together were” Acts i. 151: “a great company…were obedient” Acts vi. 7, as in the Greek: “riches is…” Rev. xviii. 17. In 1 Cor. vii. 32, however, we have acquiesced in “the things that belong” (see Appendix A), “belong” being substituted for “belongeth” as early as 1612. These faults may be imputed to venial carelessness, to the momentary relaxing of close attention which every one is sensible of in the course of a long task. At other times our version reminds the reader of some racy idiomatic expression which once formed a part of the spoken or even of the written language of our ancestors. A good example of this kind of archaism, which the best grammarians even now hesitate to condemn, is the double genitive in such cases as Gen. xxxi. 1 and the rest, given in Appendix C, p. xci., and note 3. The opposite practice of suppressing the sign of the possessive altogether, which survives in modern Bibles in Judg. iii. 16 “of a cubit length,” is found in 1611 in Lev. vii. 23; xiv. 54 (Appendix C in loco); xxv. 5 “it2 own accord”; and in one issue, Esther i. 13 “the king manner” (Appendix B, p. lxxxix.): it was never removed from Rev. xviii. 12 (bis). It may be stated here that the habit of placing the apostrophe before or after s to indicate the possessive case, singular or plural respectively, was first adopted by the editor of 1762 in part, more consistently by Blayney, yet with so little care that not very few errors in the placing of the apostrophe, such as one glance at the original would have detected, have clung to our common Bibles to this day, and have been left for us to set right. These are all noted in Appendix A (see p. lxix., note 4), and being of modern date, are distinguished by being placed within brackets: e.g.