Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 13:1 | The burden of Babel which Isaiah son of Amos saw. |
| 13:2 | Lift ye up a signal upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice to them; move the hand to and fro and they shall come in to the entrances of the noble minded. |
| 13:3 | I commanded to the consecrated, also I called the strong ones for mine anger, those exulting in my lifting up. |
| 13:4 | The voice of a mulitude in the mountain; the likeness of much people; the voice of the uproar of kingdoms, nations being gathered: Jehovah of armies reviewing the army of battle. |
| 13:5 | Coming from a land from afar, from the extremity of the heavens, Jehovah and the vessels of his wrath to overthrow all the earth. |
| 13:6 | Pipe ye, for the day of Jehovah draws near; as desolation shall it come from the Almighty. |
| 13:7 | For this all hands shall be relaxed, and every heart of man shall melt. |
| 13:8 | And they trembled; pains and writhings will lay hold of them; as she bringing forth they will be in pain: they shall wonder a man at his neighbor; their faces the face of flames. |
| 13:9 | Behold, the day of Jehovah coming fierce and overflowing, and burning anger to set the earth for desolation: and he will destroy the sinner out of it. |
| 13:10 | For the stars of the heavens and the giants of the sky shall not shine their light: the sun was darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. |
| 13:11 | And I appointed evil over the habitable globe, and upon the unjust their iniquity; and I caused to cease the pride of the arrogant, and I will humble the pride of the terrible. |
| 13:12 | I will make a man precious above pure gold, and a man above the gold of Ophir. |
| 13:13 | For this I will provoke the heavens to anger, and the earth shall tremble from her place, in the wrath of Jehovah of armies, and in the day of his burning anger. |
| 13:14 | And it was as the roe being thrust down and as a sheep and not a man gathering: to his people shall they turn, and they shall flee a man to his land. |
| 13:15 | All being found shall be thrust through; and every one scraped together shall fall by the sword. |
| 13:16 | And their children shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes, and their houses shall be plundered, and their wives shall be ravished. |
| 13:17 | Behold me rousing up the Modes against them, who shall not reckon silver; and gold they shall not delight in it |
| 13:18 | And the bows of the boys shall be dashed in pieces, and the fruit of the womb they shall not pity; and upon their sons their eye shall not have compassion. |
| 13:19 | And Babel the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' grandeur was as God overthrowing Sodom and Gomorrah. |
| 13:20 | It shall not be inhabited forever, and it shall not be dwelt in even to generation and generation: and the Arabian shall not go on there, and the shepherds shall not recline there. |
| 13:21 | And inhabitants of the desert reclined there, and their houses were filled with howlings, and the daughters of the ostrich dwelt there, and he goats shall leap there. |
| 13:22 | And howlers cried out in its palaces, and great serpents in the temples of delight: and her time draws near to come, and her days shall not be protracted. |
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.