Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 5:1 | Run ye to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in her broad places, if ye shall find a man, if there is he doing judgment, seeking faithfulness; and I will pardon to her. |
| 5:2 | And if Jehovah lives, they will say, for this they will swear to a falsehood. |
| 5:3 | O Jehovah, are not thine eyes upon faithfulness? thou didst smite them, and they were not pained; thou didst consume them, they refused to take instruction: they made their faces firm above the rock; they refused to turn back. |
| 5:4 | And I said, Surely, they are weak; they became foolish: for they knew not the way of Jehovah, the judgment of their God. |
| 5:5 | I will go for myself to the great ones, and I will speak to them; for they knew the way of Jehovah, the judgment of their God: surely they together broke the yoke and tore away the bonds. |
| 5:6 | For this, a lion from the forest struck them, a wolf of the deserts will destroy them, the panther watched over their cities: every one going forth from thence shall be torn in pieces; for their transgressions were multiplied, their turnings away were strong. |
| 5:7 | How shall I forgive to thee for this? thy sons forsook me, and they will swear by not God; and I will satisfy them, and they will commit adultery, and they will crowd themselves together to the house of the harlot |
| 5:8 | They were horses seducing to fornication: roaming about, they will neigh, a man for the wife of his neighbor. |
| 5:9 | For these shall I not review? says Jehovah; and shalt not my soul be avenged upon a nation such as this? |
| 5:10 | Go ye up upon her walls and destroy; and ye shall not make a completion: remove her twigs, for they are not to Jehovah. |
| 5:11 | For acting faithlessly, the house of Israel and the house of Judah acted faithlessly against me, says Jehovah. |
| 5:12 | They lied against Jehovah, and they will say, Not he; and evil shall not come upon us; and we shall not see the sword and famine: |
| 5:13 | And the prophets shall be for wind, and the word not in them: so shall it be done to them. |
| 5:14 | For this, thus said Jehovah, the God of armies, Because ye spake this word, behold me giving my word in thy mouth for fire, and this people wood, and it consumed them. |
| 5:15 | Behold me bringing upon you a nation from far off, O house of Israel, says Jehovah: it is a nation of strength, it is a nation of old, a nation thou wilt not know its tongue, and thou shalt not hear what it will speak. |
| 5:16 | Its quiver as a grave being opened, all they are strong. |
| 5:17 | And it ate thy harvest and thy bread, that thy sons and thy daughters shall eat: it shall eat thy sheep and thine oxen: it shall eat thy vine and thy fig-trees: it shall break down thy fortified cities which thou trustedst in them, with the sword. |
| 5:18 | And also in those days, says Jehovah, I will not make with you a completion. |
| 5:19 | And it was when ye shalt say, For what did Jehovah our God all these things to us? and thou saidst to them, As ye forsook me, and ye will serve a strange god in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land not to you. |
| 5:20 | Announce ye this in the house of Jacob, and cause it to be heard in Judah, saying, |
| 5:21 | Hear now this, O foolish people, and no heart; eyes to them and they will not see; and ears to them, and they will not hear: |
| 5:22 | Will ye not fear me? says Jehovah; or will ye not tremble from my face, who set the sand a bound to the sea a law forever, and it shall not pass over it: and its waves shall toss themselves and shall not prevail; and they were put in commotion and shall not pass over it |
| 5:23 | And to this people was a heart turning aside and perverse, and they turned aside and departed. |
| 5:24 | And they said not in their heart, Now will we fear Jehovah our God, giving rain, and the early and latter rain in its time: the appointed sevenths of harvest he will watch for us |
| 5:25 | Your iniquities turned away these things, and your sins withheld the good from you. |
| 5:26 | for evil ones were found among my people: he will look about as the stooping of fowlers; they set snares, they will take men. |
| 5:27 | As a cane full of birds, so their houses full of deceit: for this they were magnified and they will be rich. |
| 5:28 | They became fat, they shone: they passed over words of evil: they judged not judgment, the judgment of the orphan, and they will give success; and the judgment of the needy they judged not. |
| 5:29 | For these things shall I not review? says Jehovah: or shall not my soul be avenged upon a nation such as this? |
| 5:30 | Astonishment and horror was in the land. |
| 5:31 | The prophets prophesied in falsehood, and the priests will spread out with their hands; and my people loved it thus: and what will ye do to its last part |
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.