Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 15:1 | And Jehovah will say to me, If Moses shall stand, and Samuel, before my face, my soul not to this people: casting from my face they shall go forth. |
| 15:2 | And it was if they shall say to thee, Whither shall we go forth? And say to them, Thus said Jehovah, Whom for death to death; and whom for the sword to the sword; and whom for famine to famine; and whom for captivity to captivity. |
| 15:3 | And I reviewed over them four kinds, says Jehovah: the sword to kill, and dogs to tear in pieces, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts of the earth, to consume and destroy. |
| 15:4 | And I gave them for maltreatment to all the kingdoms because of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem. |
| 15:5 | For who shall have compassion upon thee, O Jerusalem? and who shall bewail for thee? and who shall turn aside to ask for thy peace? |
| 15:6 | Thou didst reject me, says Jehovah; thou wilt go backward; and I will stretch forth my hand against thee, and I will destroy thee; I was weary of lamenting. |
| 15:7 | And I will scatter them with a scatteriiig in the gates of the land; I bereaved of offspring, I destroyed my people; they turned not back from their ways. |
| 15:8 | Their widows were many to me above the sand of the seas: I brought to them against the mother a young man laying waste at noon: I caused to fall upon her suddenly wrath and terror. |
| 15:9 | She bringing forth seven, languished: she breathed out her soul; her sun went down in the midst of the day: she was ashamed and blushed: and their remainder I will give to the sword before their enemies, says Jehovah. |
| 15:10 | Wo to me, my mother, for thou broughtest me forth a man of strife and a man of contention to all the earth. I lent not on interest and they lent not to me on interest: they are altogether cursing me. |
| 15:11 | Jehovah said, If to do well to thy remnant; if not, I caused the enemy in the time of evil and in time of straits to supplicate to thee. |
| 15:12 | Shall iron break the iron of the north, and brass? |
| 15:13 | Thy strength and thy treasures I will give for a spoil not for price, and in all thy sins and in all thy bounds. |
| 15:14 | And I caused to pass with thine enemies into a land thou knewest not: for a fire was kindled in my wrath; it shall burn upon you. |
| 15:15 | Thou knewest, O Jehovah: remember me, and review me, and avenge for me from him pursuing me; not for being slow of thy wrath wilt thou take me away; know, I suffered reproach for thee. |
| 15:16 | Thy words were found, and eating them; and thy word will be to me for the gladness and for the joy of my heart: for thy name was called upon me, Jehovah the God of armies. |
| 15:17 | I sat not in the assembly of those mocking, and I will not exult; from the face of thy hand I sat alone, for thou didst fill me with anger. |
| 15:18 | Wherefore was my pain everlasting and my blow incurable, refusing to be healed? Being, wilt thou be to me as falsehood, the waters were not faithful? |
| 15:19 | For this, thus said Jehovah, If thou wilt turn back, and I will turn thee back, thou shalt stand before me: and if thou shalt bring forth the precious from the vile thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall turn back to thee and thou shalt not turn back to them. |
| 15:20 | And I gave thee to this people for a wall of brass, fortified: and they shall war against thee, and they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, says Jehovah. |
| 15:21 | And I delivered thee out of the hand of the evil, and I redeemed thee from the hand of the terrible. |
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.