Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 25:1 | O Jehovah, thou my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name, for thou didst a wonder; counsels from far off, stability, faithfulness. |
| 25:2 | For thou didst set from a city to a heap, a fortified city to ruins: a palace of strangers from a city; it shall not be built forever. |
| 25:3 | For this shall the strong people honor thee, the city of terrible nations shall fear thee. |
| 25:4 | For thou wert a fortress to the poor, a fortress to the needy in straits; to him a refuge from the inundation, a shadow from the heat when the wind of the terrible ones as the inundation of the wall. |
| 25:5 | As the heat in Zion the noise of strangers thou shalt bring down; the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the song of the terrible shall be humbled. |
| 25:6 | Jehovah of armies will make to all peoples in this mountain a drinking of fatness, a drinking of lees of wine, fatness of marrows, strained lees of wine. |
| 25:7 | And he will swallow up in this mountain the face of the covering covered over all peoples, and the veil covered over all nations. |
| 25:8 | He swallowed up death for glory, the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people he will remove from off all the earth, for Jehovah spake. |
| 25:9 | And it was said in that day, Behold, this our God, we hoped for him, and he will save us: this Jehovah, we hoped for him, we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation. |
| 25:10 | For the hand of Jehovah shall rest in this mountain, and Moab was thrust down under him as straw was thrust down in the water of the dunghill. |
| 25:11 | And he spread forth his hands in their midst, as he swimming will spread forth to swim: and he humbled their pride with the ambuscades of their hands. |
| 25:12 | And the fortress of the height of thy walls shall be brought low; be humbled, be struck to the earth, even to the dust. |
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.