Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 59:1 | Behold, the hand of Jehovah was not shortened from saving, and his ear heavy from hearing: |
| 59:2 | But your iniquities were separating between you and between your God, and your sins caused to hide;the face from you from hearing. |
| 59:3 | For your hands were polluted with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips spake falsehood, your tongue will mutter evil. |
| 59:4 | None called upon justice, and none judged in truth: trusting in vanity and speaking evil, they conceived labor and brought forth vanity. |
| 59:5 | They plundered vipers' eggs, and they will weave spiders webs: he eating from their eggs shall die, and being crushed, it shall break forth a viper. |
| 59:6 | Their webs shall not be for a garment, and they shall not be covered with their works: their works the works of vanity, and the work of violence in their hands. |
| 59:7 | Their feet will run to evil, and they will hasten to pour out innocent blood: their purposes, purposes of vanity; destruction and breaking in their highways. |
| 59:8 | The way of peace they knew not, and no judgment in their paths: they perverted their beaten paths for themselves: every one treading in it shall not know peace. |
| 59:9 | For this judgment was far off from us, and justice shall not overtake us: we shall wait for light, and behold, darkness; for brightness, and we shall walk in thick darkness. |
| 59:10 | We shall feel for the wall as the blind, and we shall feel, as no eyes: we stumbled at noon as at evening twilight; in fertile fields as the dead. |
| 59:11 | We shall growl as bears all of us, and murmuring we shall murmur as doves: we shall wait for judgment, and none; for salvation, it was far from us. |
| 59:12 | For our transgressions were multiplied before thee, and our sins answered against us: for our transgressions are with us, and our iniquities we knew them. |
| 59:13 | Transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and departing from after our God, speaking violence and apostasy, they conceived and muttered from the heart words of falsehood. |
| 59:14 | And judgment was turned away behind, and justice shall stand from far off: for truth fainted in the street, and right will not be able to come in. |
| 59:15 | And truth shall be lacking; and he departing from evil being plundered: and Jehovah will see, and it will be evil in his eyes, for no judgment |
| 59:16 | And he will see that not a man, and he will be astonished that none was supplicating: and his arm will save for him, and his justice it upheld him. |
| 59:17 | And he will put on justice as a coat of mail, and a helmet of salvation upon his head; and be will put on robes of vengeance a garment, and he will clothe himself with zeal as an upper garment |
| 59:18 | According to the works, accordingly he will recompense, wrath to his adversaries, recompense, to his enemies; to the islands will he requite recompense. |
| 59:19 | And from the west they shall fear the name of Jehovah, and from the rising of the sun, his glory. When the adversary shall come in as a river, the spirit of Jehovah was lifted up against him. |
| 59:20 | And be redeeming came to Zion, and they turning away. transgression in Jacob, says Jehovah. |
| 59:21 | And I, this my covenant with them, said Jehovah: my spirit which is upon thee, and my word which I put in thy mouth shall not depart from thy mouth, and from the mouth of thy seed, from the mouth of thy seed's seed, said Jehovah, from now and even forever. |
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.