Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
3:1 | And the seventh month will draw near, and the sons of Israel in the cities, and the people will gather together as one man to Jerusalem. |
3:2 | And Joshua the son of Josedek, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and they will build the altar of the God of Israel, to bring up upon it burnt-offerings as written in the law of Moses the man of God. |
3:3 | And they will prepare the altar upon its foundations; for in the terror upon them from the people of the lands: and they will bring up burnt-offerings upon it to Jehovah, burnt-offerings for morning and for evening. |
3:4 | And they will do the festival of tents as written, and the burnt-offerings of a day in a day, in number according to judgment, the word of a day in its day. |
3:5 | And after this the burnt-offerings of continuance, and for the new moons, and for all the appointments of Jehovah being consecrated, and for all giving willingly a voluntary gift to Jehovah. |
3:6 | From one day to the seventh month they began to bring up the burnt-offerings to Jehovah. And the temple of Jehovah was not founded. |
3:7 | And they will give silver to those hewing, and to those graving, and food and drink and oil to the Zidonians, and the Tyrians, to bring cedar woods from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa according to the permit of Cyrus king of Persia to them. |
3:8 | And in the second year to their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Josedek, and the remainder of their brethren the priests, and the Levites, and all those coming from the captivity to Jerusalem; and they will cause the Levites to stand up, from the son of twenty years and above, to superintend over the works of the house of Jehovah. |
3:9 | And Joshua will stand, his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, as one, to superintend over the doing of the work in the house of God: the sons of Henadad their sons, and their brethren the Levites. |
3:10 | And those building will lay the foundation of the temple of Jehovah, and they will cause the priests to stand, being clothed, with trumpets, and the Levites sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Jehovah according to the hands of David king of Israel. |
3:11 | And they will answer in praising and in confessing to Jehovah, for he is good, for his mercy forever upon Israel. And all the people shouted a great shout in praising to Jehovah, for the foundation of the house of Jehovah. |
3:12 | And many of the priests and the Levites and heads of the fathers, old men, who saw the first house in this house being founded before their eyes, weeping with a great voice; and many with a shout in gladness to the lifting up the voice. |
3:13 | And the people not recognizing the voice of the shout of gladness from the voice of the weeping of the people; for the people shouting a great shout, and the voice was heard even to far off |
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.