Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 4:1 | And it will be that when Sanballat heard that we are building the wall, and it will kindle to him, and he will be greatly angry, and he will mock against the Jews. |
| 4:2 | And he will say before his brethren and the strength of Shomeron, and he will say, What are the feeble Jews doing? will they leave to themselves? will they sacrifice? will they finish in a day? will they give life to the stones of the heaps of dust, and they being burnt? |
| 4:3 | And Tobiah the Ammonite near him, and he will say, Also that they are building, if a fox shall go up, and he brake their walls of stones. |
| 4:4 | Hear, O our God; for we were despised: and turn back their reproach upon their head, and wilt thou give them for plunder in the land of captivity? |
| 4:5 | And thou wilt not cover over their iniquity, and their sin shall not be wiped away before thee: for they provoked before the builders. |
| 4:6 | And we shall build the wall; and all the wall will be completed even to its half: and a heart will be to the people to work. |
| 4:7 | And it will be that when Sanballat heard, and Tobiah, and the Arabians and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, that healing ascended to the walls of Jerusalem, that the breaches began to be stopped, and it kindled to them greatly; |
| 4:8 | And they will conspire all of them together to come to war against Jerusalem, and to do damage to it |
| 4:9 | And we will pray to our God, and we shall set up a watch against them day and night, from before them. |
| 4:10 | And Judah will say, The strength of the bearer was weak, and the dust much; and we shall not be able to build upon the wall. |
| 4:11 | And our adversaries will say, They shall not know, and they shall not see, till that we shall come to their midst and kill them, and cause the work to cease. |
| 4:12 | And it will be that when the Jews dwelling near them came, and they will say to us ten times, From all places which ye shall turn back to us. |
| 4:13 | And I shall set from underneath to the place from behind to the wall upon the dry places, and I shall set the people to the families with their swords, their spears and their bows. |
| 4:14 | And I shall see, and I shall rise up and say to the nobles and to the prefects and to the rest of the people, Ye shall not be afraid from their face: remember Jehovah great and terrible; and war for yourselves, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses. |
| 4:15 | And it will be that when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and God will disperse their counsel, and we shall turn back all of us to the wall, each to his work. |
| 4:16 | And it will be from that day the half of my young men doing in the work, and half of them holding fast and the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats of mail; and the chiefs behind every house of Judah. |
| 4:17 | They building upon the wall, and they bearing in the burden, they loading with one of his hands doing in the work, and one holding fast the weapon. |
| 4:18 | And the builders, a man his sword being girded upon his loins, and building. And he striking upon the trumpet near me. |
| 4:19 | And saying to the nobles and to the prefects and to the rest of the people, The work much and broad, and we being scattered upon the wall, far off a man from his brother. |
| 4:20 | In the place which ye shall hear the voice of the trumpet there ye shall gather together to us; our God shall war for us. |
| 4:21 | And we doing in the work: and half of them holding fast upon the spears from the ascending of the dawn even till the coming forth of the stars. |
| 4:22 | Also in that time I said to the people, A man and his youth shall lodge in the midst of Jerusalem; and they were watching for us in the night, and work in the day. |
| 4:23 | And not I and my brethren and my young men, and the men of the watch which were after me, we not putting off our garments; a man his weapon for water. |
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.