Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 1:1 | Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel; |
| 1:2 | To know wisdom and instruction; to discern the words of understanding; |
| 1:3 | To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment, and uprightness; |
| 1:4 | To give craftiness to the simple, and to the youth, knowledge and meditation. |
| 1:5 | The wise one will hear and he will add learning: and he understanding, shall obtain guidance: |
| 1:6 | To understand a proverb, and an enigma: the words of the wise and their parables. |
| 1:7 | The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge: the foolish despised wisdom and instruction. |
| 1:8 | My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and thou shalt not reject the law of thy mother: |
| 1:9 | For they a garland of grace to thy head, and necklaces for thy throat |
| 1:10 | My son, if they sinning shall entice thee, thou shalt not go in. |
| 1:11 | If they shall say, Go with us, we will lie in wait for blood, we will hide for the innocent gratuitously; |
| 1:12 | We will swallow them down living, as hades, and whole, as they going down to the pit: |
| 1:13 | We shall find precious riches, we will fill our houses with spoil: |
| 1:14 | Wilt thou cast thy lot in the midst of us; one purse shall be to all: |
| 1:15 | My son, thou shalt not go in the way with them; withhold thy foot from their beaten paths: |
| 1:16 | For their feet will run to evil, and they will hasten to pour out blood: |
| 1:17 | For gratuitously the net was spread in the eyes of all possessing a wing. |
| 1:18 | And they will lie in wait for their blood; they will hide for their souls. |
| 1:19 | So the ways of every one plundering plunder; he will take the soul of those possessing it. |
| 1:20 | Wisdom will cry without; in the broad places she will give her voice: |
| 1:21 | She will call in the head of sound, in the entrances of the gates: in the city she will say her words: |
| 1:22 | How long, ye simple, will ye love simplicity? and mockers delight to mock for them, and the foolish hate knowledge? |
| 1:23 | Ye shall turn back at my reproofs: behold, I will pour forth my spirit to you, I will make known my words to you. |
| 1:24 | Because I called and ye will refuse; I stretched forth my hands, and none attending; |
| 1:25 | And ye will reject all my counsels, and ye desired not my reproofs: |
| 1:26 | Also I will laugh at your ruin: I will deride in the coming of your terror; |
| 1:27 | In your terror coming as a destroying tempest, and your ruin shall come as a whirlwind; in the coming upon you of straits and distress. |
| 1:28 | Then they shall call upon me, and I will not answer; they shall seek me, and shall not find me; |
| 1:29 | For that they hated knowledge, and chose not the fear of Jehovah: |
| 1:30 | They desired not for my counsels: and derided all my reproofs. |
| 1:31 | And they shall eat from the fruit of their way, and be filled with their purposes |
| 1:32 | For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the error of the foolish shall destroy them. |
| 1:33 | And he hearing to me shall dwell in confidence, and being quiet from fear of evil. |
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.