The third
time to counsel with olde grammarians and old divines of hard words and
hard sentences how they might best be understood and translated, the
fourth time to translate as clearly as he could to the sense, and to
have many good fellows and cunnying at the correcting of the
translacioun. A translator hath great nede to studie well the sense both
before and after, and then also he hath nede to live a clene life and be
full devout in preiers, and have not his wit occupied about worldli
things that the Holy Spyrit author of all wisdom and cunnynge and truthe
dresse him for his work and suffer him not to err." And he concludes
with the prayer, "God grant to us all grace to ken well and to kepe well
Holie Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for it at the laste."

Like all the earlier English translations, Wycliffe's Bible was based on
the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome; and this is the great defect in his
work, as compared with the versions that followed. He was not capable of
consulting the original Greek and Hebrew even if he had access to
them--in fact, there was probably no man in England at the time capable
of doing so; and therefore, though he represents the Latin faithfully
and well, he of course handed on its errors as faithfully as its
perfections. But, such as it is, it is a fine specimen of
fourteenth-century English. He translated not for scholars or for
nobles, but for the plain people, and his style was such as suited those
for whom he wrote--plain, vigorous, homely, and yet with all its
homeliness full of a solemn grace and dignity, which made men feel that
they were reading no ordinary book. He uses many striking expressions,
such as (II Tim. ii. 4): "No man holding knighthood to God, wlappith
himself with worldli nedes;" and many of the best-known phrases in our
present Bible originated with him; _e.g._, "the beame and the mote,"
"the depe thingis of God," "strait is the gate and narewe is the waye,"
"no but a man schall be born againe," "the cuppe of blessing which we
blessen," etc.

Here is a specimen from Wycliffe's Gospels:

In thilke dayes came Joon Baptist prechynge in the
desert of Jude, saying, Do ye penaunce: for the kyngdom
of heuens shall neigh. Forsothe this is he of whom
it is said by Ysaye the prophete, A voice of a cryinge in
desert, make ye redy the wayes of the Lord, make ye
rightful the pathes of hym. Forsothe that like Joon hadde
cloth of the beeris of cameylis an