Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 47:1 | Come down and sit upon the dust, thou virgin daughter of Babel, sit upon the earth: no throne, thou daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt not be added for them to call thee tender and delicate. |
| 47:2 | Take the two mill-stones and grind flour, and uncover thy veil; strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. |
| 47:3 | Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, also thy reproach shall be seen: I will take vengeance, I will not make peace with man. |
| 47:4 | Jehovah of armies redeemed us, his name the Holy One of Israel |
| 47:5 | Sit thou silently and go into darkness, thou daughter of the Chaldeans for thou shalt no more be added for them to call thee The mistress of kingdoms |
| 47:6 | I was angry against my people; I defiled my inheritances, and I will give them into thine hand, and thou didst not set mercy to them; upon the old thou didst make heavy thy yoke greatly. |
| 47:7 | And thou wilt say, I shall be mistress forever: till thou didst not set these upon thy heart, thou didst not remember its last part |
| 47:8 | And now hear this, thou living delicately, dwelling securely, saying in her heart, I, and none besides me; I shall not sit a widow, and I shall not know bereavement |
| 47:9 | And these two shall come to thee suddenly, in one day, bereavement and widowhood: as finished they came upon thee, in the multitude of thy sorceries, and in the great numbers of thy enchantments. |
| 47:10 | And thou wilt trust in thy wickedness: thou saidst, None saw me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge it caused thee to turn away; and thou wilt say in thy heart, I, and none yet besides me. |
| 47:11 | And evil came upon thee; thou shalt not know its dawn, and ruin shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to expiate it, and desolation shall suddenly come upon thee; thou shalt not know. |
| 47:12 | Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries in which thou didst labor from thy youth; perhaps thou wilt be able to be of use, perhaps thou wilt cause fear. |
| 47:13 | Thou wert wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Shall those searching out the heavens, those looking upon the stars, causing to know concerning the months, now stand and save thee from what shall come upon thee? |
| 47:14 | Behold, they were as straw; the fire burnt them; they shall not deliver their soul from the hand of the flame:. not a coal for warming, light to sit before it |
| 47:15 | Thus shall they be to thee for whom thou didst labor, thy merchants, from thy youth; they wandered a man to his other side; none saving thee. |
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.