Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 4:1 | And Mordecai knew all that was done, and Mordecai will rend his garments, and put on sackcloth and ashes, and he will go forth into the city, and he will cry out a great and bitter cry; |
| 4:2 | And he will come even before the king's gate: for none to come into the king's gate in putting on sackcloth. |
| 4:3 | And in every province and province the place where the word of the king and his edict coming, great mourning to the Jews, and fasting and weeping and wailing; sackcloth and ashes will be spread to many. |
| 4:4 | And Esther's maidens will go in, and her eunuchs, and they will announce to her: and the queen will be greatly grieved; and she will send garments to clothe Mordecai and to put away his sackcloth from off him: and he received not |
| 4:5 | And Esther will call to Hatach from the king's eunuchs, whom he caused to stand before her, and she will give him a charge to Mordecai, to know what this, and for what this |
| 4:6 | And Hatach went forth to Mordecai to the broad place of the city, which was before the king's gate. |
| 4:7 | And Mordecai will announce to him all which befell him, and the exposition of the silver which Haman said to weigh to the king's treasures for the Jews to destroy them. |
| 4:8 | And the copy of the writing of the edict which was given in Shushan to destroy them, he gave to him to cause Esther to see, and to announce to her, and to charge upon her to go in to the king to implore mercy, and to seek from before him for her people. |
| 4:9 | And Hatach will go in and announce to Esther the words of Mordecai. |
| 4:10 | And Esther will say to Hatach, and will give him a charge to Mordecai; |
| 4:11 | All the king's servants, and the people of the kings provinces, knowing that every man and woman who shall go in to the king to the inner enclosure who shall not be called, one edict of his to put to death only which the king shall stretch out to him the sceptre of gold, and he lived: and I was not called to go in to the king this thirty days. |
| 4:12 | And they will announce to Mordecai, Esther's words. |
| 4:13 | And Mordecai will tell to turn back to Esther, Thou wilt not imagine in thy soul to escape in the house of the king more than all the Jews. |
| 4:14 | For if being silent, thou shalt be silent in this time, breath and deliverance shall stand up to the Jews from another place; and thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who shall know if for a time like this thou camest to the kingdom? |
| 4:15 | And Esther will tell to turn back to Mordecai: |
| 4:16 | Go collect together all the Jews being found in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and ye shall not eat and ye shall not drink three days, night and day also I and my maidens will fast thus and in this I will go in to the king which is not according to the edict; and according to that I perished, I perished. |
| 4:17 | And Mordecai will pass by, and will do according to all that Esther charged upon him. |
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.