Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 40:1 | Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, will your God say |
| 40:2 | Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her that her war was filled up, her iniquity was paid off: that she received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins. |
| 40:3 | The voice of him calling in the desert, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the sterile region a highway for our God. |
| 40:4 | Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the acclivity was for evenness, and the mountain ranges for a valley: |
| 40:5 | And the glory of Jehovah was uncovered, and all flesh saw it together: for the mouth of Jehovah spake. |
| 40:6 | The voice said, Call And he said, What shall I call? All flesh grass, and all its goodness as the flower of the field: |
| 40:7 | The grass was dried up, the flower fell away: for the spirit of Jehovah blew upon it: surely the people grass. |
| 40:8 | The grass was dried up, the flower fell away: and the word of our God shall stand forever. |
| 40:9 | Upon the high mountain come up for thee, O Zion: announcing the good news, lift up thy voice with strength, O Jerusalem; announcing the good news, lift up, thou shalt not be afraid; say to the cities, Behold your God! |
| 40:10 | Behold the Lord Jehovah will come in strength, and his arm ruling for him: behold, his reward with him and his work before him. |
| 40:11 | As a shepherd he will feed his flock: with his arm he will gather the lambs, and will lift up into his bosom, he will lead those coming up. |
| 40:12 | Who measured the water in his palm, and measured the heavens with a span, and held the dust of the earth in a third, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the bills in scales? |
| 40:13 | Who measured the spirit of Jehovah? and will a man of his counsel make him to know? |
| 40:14 | With whom did he consult, and will he cause him to understand and teach him in the path of judgment, and teach him knowledge, and cause him to know the way of understanding? |
| 40:15 | Behold, the nations as a drop from a bucket; they were reckoned as the fine dust of the scales: behold, he will cast down the isles as small dust |
| 40:16 | And Lebanon not enough to burn, and its beasts not enough for a burnt-offering. |
| 40:17 | All the nations as nothing before him; they were reckoned to him from nothing, and vanity. |
| 40:18 | And to whom will ye liken God? what likeness will ye compare to him? |
| 40:19 | The artificer cast the carved image, and the founder will spread it out with gold, and he smelted chains of silver. |
| 40:20 | And he being poor of oblation will choose wood that will not be rotten; he will seek to him a wise artificer to prepare a carved image that will not shake. |
| 40:21 | Will ye not know? will ye not hear? was it not announced to you from the beginning? did ye not understand from the foundations of the earth? |
| 40:22 | He sitting upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants as locusts; he stretching out the heavens as fine cloth, and he will extend them as a tent to dwell in: |
| 40:23 | He gave princes to nothing; he made the judges of the earth as vanity. |
| 40:24 | Also they were not planted: also they were not sown: also their stock took not root in the earth: and he also blew upon them and they will be dried up, and the storm will lift them up as straw. |
| 40:25 | And to whom will ye liken me, and shall I be equal? will say the Holy One. |
| 40:26 | Lift up your eyes on high, and see who created these, bringing forth their army by number: he will call to all of them by name, from the multitude of their strength; and he is strong of power; a man was not wanting. |
| 40:27 | For what wilt thou say, O Jacob, and wilt thou speak, O Israel, My way was hid from Jehovah, and my judgment will pass over from my God. |
| 40:28 | Didst thou not know? heardest thou not the eternal God, Jehovah, creating the extremities of the earth, will not faint, and will not be weary? no searching to his understanding. |
| 40:29 | He gave power to the faint; and to the not strong he will increase strength. |
| 40:30 | And the boys shall be faint and weary, and the young men faltering, shall become feeble |
| 40:31 | And they waiting for Jehovah shall change power; they shall go up on the wing as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall go and not faint. |
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.