The LSB Portable Paragraph Reference Red Letter in Green Calfskin

The Legacy Standard Bible has quickly elevated to one of my favorite translations. Three Sixteen has quickly elevated to one of my favorite publishers. Each new edition they put out is fantastic and I love that they keep releasing quality editions of the Legacy Standard Bible. I was excited when they announced they were releasing a portable reference edition and I knew I wanted to check it out.

Typically, Three Sixteen likes to surprise us with new editions by not letting us in on which cover style they are sending us. I was thrilled when I opened up the forest green cowhide edition. This cowhide is grainy and has a great feel to it. I love the deep green hues. I’d love for it to have a little more yapp, but it’s also a paste down liner so I understand why that might not be possible.

The spine has gold printing. It says, “HOLY BIBLE”, has the LSB logo, “LEGACY STANDARD BIBLE”, and “STEADFAST BIBLES at the bottom. It has gold gilded page edges with two long and wide double sided satin ribbons. One is maroon and the other is gold. The gold accents compliment this Bible nicely. It also features green head and tail bands.

Inside features a black vinyl paste down liner with black vinyl end sheets. The Bible is Smyth-sewn for durability. Size wise, this Bible kind of puts me in mind of the Cambridge Clarion. It’s small and a bit chunky. However, I believe it is thinner than the Clarion. It feels great in the hand.

This one is printed and bound in Korea. It features a 28 GSM paper that I think looks and feels thicker than 28. It features the words of Christ in red as well as red accents for page headings and chapter numbers. I’m not normally a fan of red letter, but I am impressed with how dark the red is in this Bible and it doesn’t bother me at all. It is truly well done.

The page layout is a miniaturized version of the Giant Print Reference LSB. It’s double column and has a vertical red line between each column. The cross references are single column at the bottom. The type size is a 9.5, but it may read slightly smaller than that. The text is line matched.

A few things stick out to me about this layout. I love the bold verse numbers. While this is a paragraph edition, the verse numbers are so bold that they pop out at you. I love that for quickly locating verses. Also, the cross references are very readable. In a lot of portable Bibles, the cross references are useless because they are too small. This Bible is meant to be a portable workhorse. Finally, as I said earlier, the red letter is great. It’s very dark.

Finally, this Bible includes maps and tables for weights and measures. Maybe some people use these, but I’d just as soon leave them out and thin the Bible a little. Make it slightly more portable. That’s just my two pennies.

All in all, I love this Bible! This is a great edition to the LSB line up and I plan to make it my main portable LSB. The compact is nice, but I’d rather have this one on the go so I can cross reference if needed. Three Sixteen did so well on this one. I hope I can get my hands on a black letter edition.

You should head to Three Sixteen’s website and pick up your copy!