Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 30:1 | The words of Agur, son of Jakeh: the lifting up: the declaration of the man to Ithiel; to Ithiel and Ucal: |
| 30:2 | For I am brutish more than man, and not the understanding of a man to me. |
| 30:3 | I learnt not wisdom, and I shall not know the knowledge of the holy. |
| 30:4 | Who went up to the heavens, and came down? who gathered the wind in his fists? who bound the waters in a garment? who set up all the ends of the earth? what his name and what his son's name, if thou shalt know? |
| 30:5 | All the word of God is purified: he a shield to those trusting in him. |
| 30:6 | Thou shalt not add to his words lest he reprove in thee, and thou wert false. |
| 30:7 | Two things I asked from thee, thou wilt not withhold from me before I shall die: |
| 30:8 | Vanity and the word of falsehood remove far from me; thou wilt not give to me poverty and riches; feed me with bread of my allowance: |
| 30:9 | Lest I shall be filled and I spake lies, and said, Who is Jehovah? and lest I shall be dispossessed and I stole, and I laid hold upon the name of God. |
| 30:10 | Thou shalt not slander the servant to his lord lest he shall curse thee, and thou wert guilty. |
| 30:11 | A generation will curse its father, and will not bless its mother. |
| 30:12 | A generation pure in its eyes, and not washed from its finding. |
| 30:13 | A generation, how its eyes were raised up and its eyelashes will be lifted up. |
| 30:14 | A generation, its teeth swords, and its biter's teeth, knives, to devour the poor from the land, and the needy from man. |
| 30:15 | To the leech two daughters: Give, give. Behold, three shall not satisfied; four shall not say, Wealth: |
| 30:16 | Hades; and the closed womb; the earth not filled with water; and fire said not, Wealth. |
| 30:17 | The eye shall mock to his father, and despise to obey the mother, the ravens of the valley shall bore it out and the sons of the eagle shall eat it |
| 30:18 | They three were wonderful above me; and four, I knew them not: |
| 30:19 | The way of the eagle in the heavens; the way of the serpent upon the rock; the way of the ship in the heart of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. |
| 30:20 | So the way of a woman committing adultery; eating and wiping her mouth, and saying, I transgressed not |
| 30:21 | For three the earth was moved, and for four, which it shall not be able to lift up: |
| 30:22 | For a servant when he shall reign; and the foolish one when he shall be filled with bread; |
| 30:23 | For a hated woman when she shall be married and a maid when she shall inherit to her mistress. |
| 30:24 | They four the small of the earth, and they are wise, being made wise: |
| 30:25 | The ants a people not strong, and they will prepare their bread in the summer; |
| 30:26 | The rabbits a people not strong, and they will set their house in the rock; |
| 30:27 | To the locust no king, and it will go forth divided all of them; |
| 30:28 | The lizard will take hold with their hands, and it is in the temples of the king. |
| 30:29 | They three making good the step, and four, making good to go: |
| 30:30 | The lion strong among cattle, and he will not turn back from the face of all; |
| 30:31 | One girded in loins, or a he goat; and a king, no rising up with him. |
| 30:32 | If thou wert foolish in lifting up thyself, and if thou purposed, the hand to the mouth. |
| 30:33 | For the pressure of milk will bring forth cheese, and the pressure of the nose will bring forth blood: and the pressure of wrath will, bring forth contention. |
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.