Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 54:1 | Shout, thou barren, not bringing forth; break forth in shouting, cry aloud, not being pained; for more the sons of the desolate than the sons of the married, said Jehovah. |
| 54:2 | Enlarge the place of thy tent, stretch forth the hangings of thy dwellings; thou shalt not spare; lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy pegs. |
| 54:3 | For the right and the left thou shalt break forth, and thy seed shall inherit the nations, and they shall cause desolated cities to be inhabited. |
| 54:4 | Thou shalt not fear; for thou shalt not be ashamed: and thou shalt not be disgraced, and thou shalt not be put to shame, for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and thou shalt no more remember the reproach of thy widowhood. |
| 54:5 | For thy Lord making thee; Jehovah of armies his name; and he redeeming thee, the Holy One of Israel; the God of the earth shall he be called. |
| 54:6 | As a wife forsaken and grieved of spirit Jehovah called thee, and a wife of youth; for thou shalt be rejected, said thy God. |
| 54:7 | In a little moment I forsook thee; and with great mercies I will gather thee. |
| 54:8 | In the outpouring of anger I hid a moment my face from thee; and in eternal mercy I compassionated thee, said Jehovah redeeming thee. |
| 54:9 | For this the water of Noah to me: as I sware to the water of Noah from again passing over the earth; thus I sware from being angry against thee and from rebuking upon thee. |
| 54:10 | For the mountains shall remove and the hills shall waver; and my mercy shall not remove from thee, and the covenant of my peace shall not waver, said Jehovah compassionating thee. |
| 54:11 | Thou afflicted, tossed about, not comforted behold me laying thy stones with paint, and I founded thee with sapphires |
| 54:12 | And I set thy battlements the ruby, and thy gates in stones of sparkling, and all thy bound in stones of delight |
| 54:13 | And all thy sons taught of Jehovah; and much the peace of thy sons. |
| 54:14 | In justice shalt thou be prepared: go far off from violence; for thou shalt not be afraid: and from terror, for it shall not draw near to thee. |
| 54:15 | Behold, gathering, it shall gather together, not from me: who sojourned with thee shall fall for thee. |
| 54:16 | Behold, I created the workman blowing the coals in the fire, and bringing forth a utensil for his work; and I created the destroyer to overthrow. |
| 54:17 | Every vessel formed against thee shall not prosper: and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This the inheritance of the servants of Jehovah, and their justice is from me, says Jehovah. |
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.