Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 17:1 | And Elijah the Tishbite from the Tishbites of Gilead, will say to Ahab, Jehovah the God of Israel lives whom I stood before him if there shall be dew and rain but according to the mouth of my word. |
| 17:2 | And the word of Jehovah will be to him, saying, |
| 17:3 | Go from hence and turn to thyself east, and hide by the torrent Cherith which is before Jordan. |
| 17:4 | And being thou shalt drink from the torrent; and I commanded the ravens to nourish thee there. |
| 17:5 | And he will go and do according to the word of Jehovah: and he will go and dwell by the torrent Cherith which is upon the face of Jordan. |
| 17:6 | And the ravens bringing to him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he will drink from the torrent. |
| 17:7 | And it will be from the end of days, and the torrent will dry up, for there was no rain upon the earth. |
| 17:8 | And the word of Jehovah will be to him, saying, |
| 17:9 | Arise, go to Zarephath which is to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I commanded a widow woman to nourish thee there. |
| 17:10 | And he will rise and go to Zarephath, and will come to the entrance of the city, and behold there a widow woman gathering wood: and he will call to her, and say, Take now to me a little water in a vessel, and I will drink. |
| 17:11 | And she will go to take, and he will call to her and say, Take now to me a bit of bread in thy hand. |
| 17:12 | And she will say, Jehovah thy God lives, if there is to me a cake, but a handful of flour in a bucket, and a little oil in a cruse: and behold me gathering two woods, and I went to do it for me and for my son, and we shall eat and die. |
| 17:13 | And Elijah will say to her, Thou shalt not fear; go and do according to thy word: but make to me from thence a little cake at first, and bring forth to me, and for thee and for thy son thou shalt make at last |
| 17:14 | For thus said Jehovah the God of Israel, The bucket of flour shall not be spent, and the cruse of oil shall not fail until the day Jehovah shall give rain upon the face of the earth. |
| 17:15 | And she will go and do according to the word of Elijah: and she will eat, she and he, and her house, days. |
| 17:16 | The bucket of flour was not spent, and the cruse of oil failed no; according to the word of Jehovah which he spake by the hand of Elijah. |
| 17:17 | And it will be after these words, the son of the woman, the lady of the house, was sick, and his sickness was very strong till that breath was not left in him. |
| 17:18 | And she will say to Elijah, What to me and to thee, thou man of God? camest thou to me to bring to remembrance mine iniquity, and to kill my son? |
| 17:19 | And he will say to her, Give to me thy son. And he will take him from her bosom and bring him up into an upper chamber where he sat there, and he will lay him upon his bed. |
| 17:20 | And he will call to Jehovah, and say, Jehovah my God, didst thou also do evil upon the widow which I dwelt with her to kill her son? |
| 17:21 | And he will measure upon the child three times, and he will call to Jehovah, and say, Jehovah my God wilt thou turn back now the soul of this child within his inner part? |
| 17:22 | And Jehovah will hear to the voice of Elijah, and he will turn back the soul of the child within his inner part, and he will live. |
| 17:23 | And Elijah will take the child and bring him down from the upper chamber of the house, and give him to his mother: and Elijah will say, See, thy son lives |
| 17:24 | And the woman will say to Elijah, Now this I know that thou a man of God, and the word of Jehovah in thy mouth, truth. |
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.