Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 3:1 | After this Job opened his mouth, and he will curse his day. |
| 3:2 | Job will answer and say, |
| 3:3 | The day shall perish I shall bring forth in it, and the night said, A male was conceived. |
| 3:4 | That day shall be darkness; God shall not search it out from above, and the light shall not shine upon it. |
| 3:5 | Darkness shall pollute it, and the shadow of death; a cloud shall dwell upon it; the obscurations of day shall terrify it |
| 3:6 | That night darkness shall take it; it shall not be joined upon the days of the year; it shall not come into the number of months. |
| 3:7 | Behold, that night shall be hard; no rejoicing shall be in it |
| 3:8 | They cursing the day shall curse it, they being ready to rouse up the sea monster. |
| 3:9 | The stars of its twilight shall he dark; it shall wait for light, and none; and it shall not look upon the eyelashes of the dawn., |
| 3:10 | Because it shut not up the doors of my belly; and shall it hide the labor of mine eyes? |
| 3:11 | Wherefore shall I not die from the womb? and I came forth from the belly, and I shall expire. |
| 3:12 | Why did the knees anticipate me? and wherefore the breasts that I shall suck? |
| 3:13 | For now I lay down and I shall rest; I slept: then there will be rest to me. |
| 3:14 | With kings and counselors of the earth building the wastes for themselves; |
| 3:15 | Or with chiefs, gold to them, filling their houses with silver: |
| 3:16 | Or as a hidden abortion I shall not be; as children they saw not light. |
| 3:17 | There the unjust ceased to be angry, and the weary in strength shall rest. |
| 3:18 | They being bound, rested together; they heard not the voice of the taskmaster. |
| 3:19 | The little and the great, he is there; and the servant being free from his lord. |
| 3:20 | Wherefore shall light be given to him toiling, and life to the bitter of soul? |
| 3:21 | Waiting for death, and it is not; and they will dig more than for hidden treasures; |
| 3:22 | Rejoicing with joy when they find the grave; |
| 3:23 | To a man whose way was hid, and God will hedge about him? |
| 3:24 | For my sighing will come before any bread, and my groanings shall be poured put as waters. |
| 3:25 | For I feared a fear, and it will come upon me, and what I was afraid of will come to me. |
| 3:26 | I was not secure, and I rested not, and I was not quiet; and trouble will come. |
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
The Julia Evelina Smith Parker Translation is considered the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman. The Bible was titled The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues, and was published in 1876.
Julia Smith, of Glastonbury, Connecticut had a working knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Her father had been a Congregationalist minister before he became a lawyer. Having read the Bible in its original languages, she set about creating her own translation, which she completed in 1855, after a number of drafts. The work is a strictly literal rendering, always translating a Greek or Hebrew word with the same word wherever possible. Smith accomplished this work on her own in the span of eight years (1847 to 1855). She had sought out no help in the venture, even writing, "I do not see that anybody can know more about it than I do." Smith's insistence on complete literalness, plus an effort to translate each original word with the same English word, combined with an odd notion of Hebrew tenses (often translating the Hebrew imperfect tense with the English future) results in a translation that is mechanical and often nonsensical. However, such a translation if overly literal might be valuable to consult in checking the meaning of some individual verse. One notable feature of this translation was the prominent use of the Divine Name, Jehovah, throughout the Old Testament of this Bible version.
In 1876, at 84 years of age some 21 years after completing her work, she finally sought publication. The publication costs ($4,000) were personally funded by Julia and her sister Abby Smith. The 1,000 copies printed were offered for $2.50 each, but her household auction in 1884 sold about 50 remaining copies.
The translation fell into obscurity as it was for the most part too literal and lacked any flow. For example, Jer. 22:23 was given as follows: "Thou dwelling in Lebanon, building as nest in the cedars, how being compassionated in pangs coming to thee the pain as in her bringing forth." However, the translation was the only Contemporary English translation out of the original languages available to English readers until the publication of The British Revised Version in 1881-1894.(The New testament was published in 1881, the Old in 1884, and the Apocrypha in 1894.) This makes it an invaluable Bible for its period.