Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 15:1 | And Azariah son of Oded, upon him was the spirit of God. |
| 15:2 | And he will go forth before Asa, and say to him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; Jehovah is with you in your being with him; and if ye will seek him he will be found to you; and if ye will forsake him, he will forsake you. |
| 15:3 | And many days to Israel for not a God of truth, and for no priest teaching, and for no law. |
| 15:4 | And he will turn back in straits to him upon Jehovah God of Israel, and they will seek him and he will be found to them. |
| 15:5 | And in these times no peace to him going out, and to him coming in, for much consternation upon all inhabiting the lands. |
| 15:6 | And they dashed themselves, nation upon nation, and city upon city: for God disturbed them with all straits. |
| 15:7 | And ye, be ye strong, and your hands shall not be relaxed; for there is a reward to your work. |
| 15:8 | And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he strengthened himself, and he will put away the abominations from all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and from the cities which he took from mount Ephraim, and he will renew the altar of Jehovah which was before the porch of Jehovah. |
| 15:9 | And he will gather all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them from Ephraim and Manasseh and from Simeon: for they fell to him from Israel for multitude in their seeing that Jehovah his God was with him. |
| 15:10 | And they will gather together at Jerusalem in the third month, for the fifteenth year to the kingdom of Asa. |
| 15:11 | And they will sacrifice to Jehovah in that day from the spoil they brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. |
| 15:12 | And they will come into a covenant to seek Jehovah the God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; |
| 15:13 | And every one who will not seek for Jehovah God of Israel shall be put to death, from small and even to great, from man and even to woman. |
| 15:14 | And they will swear to Jehovah with a great voice, and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns. |
| 15:15 | And all Judah will rejoice at the oath: for with all their heart they sware, and with all their desire they sought him, and he will be found to them: and Jehovah will give rest to them from round about. |
| 15:16 | And also Maachah, Asa's mother, the king removed her from queen because she made terror for a statue: and Asa will cut off her terror, and beat small, and burn in the torrent Kidron. |
| 15:17 | And the heights were not removed from Israel: but the heart of Asa was complete all his days. |
| 15:18 | And he will bring the holies of his father, and his holies, into the house of God, silver and gold and vessels. |
| 15:19 | And war was not even to the thirty and fifth year to the kingdom of Asa. |
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.