Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 2:1 | And a man from the house of Levi will go and take a daughter of Levi. |
| 2:2 | And the woman will conceive and will bring forth a son; and she will see him that he is good, and she will hide him three months. |
| 2:3 | And she will not be able any more to hide him, and she will take for him an ark of bulrush, and will pitch it with bitumen and with pitch, and she will put in it the child, and will put in the sedge by the lip of the river. |
| 2:4 | And his sister will stand afar off to know what will be done to him. |
| 2:5 | And the daughter of Pharaoh will come down to wash at the river; and her maids going by the side of the river: and she will see the ark in the midst of the sedge, and she will send her maid and she will take it. |
| 2:6 | And she will open and will see the child: and behold, the boy weeping: And she will have pity upon him, and will say, This from the children of the Hebrews. |
| 2:7 | And his sister will say to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse from the Hebrew women, and she will suckle the child for thee? |
| 2:8 | And Pharaoh's daughter will say to her, Go. And she will go and call the child's mother. |
| 2:9 | And Pharaoh's daughter will say to her, Take this child and suckle it for me, and I will give thy wages And the woman will take the child and will suckle it |
| 2:10 | And the child will become great, and she will bring him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he will be to her for a son. And she will call his name Moses; and she will say, Because I drew him out of the water. |
| 2:11 | And it will be in these days, and Moses will become great, and he will go forth to his brethren, and he will see their burdens: and he will see a man, an Egyptian, smiting a man, a Hebrew, from his brethren. |
| 2:12 | And he will turn hither and thither, and will see that there is no man, and he will smite the Egyptian, and hide him in the sand. |
| 2:13 | And he will go forth in the second day, and behold, two men, Hebrews, (paneling; and he will say to the unjust one, For what wilt thou smite thy friend? |
| 2:14 | And he will say, Who set thee for a chief man and judge over us? dost thou think to kill me as thou didst kill the Egyptian? and Moses will be afraid, and will say, Surely, this word was known. |
| 2:15 | And Pharaoh will hear this word, and he will seek to kill Moses. And Moses will flee from the face of Pharaoh, and he will dwell in the land of Midian: and he will sit down by the well. |
| 2:16 | And to the priest of Midian, seven daughters: and they will come and will draw and fill the watering troughs to water the sheep of their father. |
| 2:17 | And the shepherds will come, and will expel them: and Moses will rise up and help them, and will water their sheep. |
| 2:18 | And they will come to Reuel their father, and he will say, Wherefore hastened ye to come this day? |
| 2:19 | And they will say, A man, an Egyptian, delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and also drawing, drew for us, and watered the sleep. |
| 2:20 | And he will say to his daughters, Where is he? for what this left ye the man? call to him and he shall eat bread. |
| 2:21 | And Moses will be contented to dwell with the man, and he will give Zipporah his daughter to Moses. |
| 2:22 | And she will bear a son, and he will call his name Gershom; for he said, I was a sojourner in a strange land. |
| 2:23 | And it will be in these many days, and the king of Egypt will die: and the sons of Israel will groan, from the work; and they will cry out, and their supplication will go up to God from the work. |
| 2:24 | And God will hear their groaning, and God will remember his covenant with Abraham, with Isaak and with Jacob. |
| 2:25 | And God will see the sons of Israel, and God will know. |
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.