Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 51:1 | Thus said Jehovah: Behold me raising up against Babel and against those dwelling in the heart of those rising up, a destroying spirit |
| 51:2 | And I sent forth to Babel those scattering, and they scattered her, and they shall empty her land: for they were against her round about in the day of evil. |
| 51:3 | Against him bending shall he bending, bend the bow, and against him going up in his coat of mail: and ye shall not spare to her young men; exterminate all her army. |
| 51:4 | And the wounded fell in the land of the Chaldeans, and those being thrust through in her streets |
| 51:5 | For Israel not in widowhood, and Judah from his God, from Jehovah of armies; if their land was filled with guilt because of the Holy One of Israel. |
| 51:6 | Flee from the midst of Babel and save ye each his soul: ye shall not be destroyed in her iniquity: for it is the time of vengeance to Jehovah; he will do to her a recompense. |
| 51:7 | Babel a cup of gold in the hand of Jehovah, making all the earth drunk: the nations drank from her wine; for this the nations will be foolish. |
| 51:8 | Babylon fell suddenly, and she will be broken: wail ye for her; take balsam for her pain, perhaps she will be healed. |
| 51:9 | We healed Babel, and she was not healed: forsake ye her and we will go each to his land: for her judgment reached to the heavens, and was lifted up even to the clouds. |
| 51:10 | Jehovah brought forth our justice: come ye, and we will recount in Zion the work of Jehovah our God. |
| 51:11 | Polish the arrows; fill the quivers: Jehovah roused up the spirit of the kings of the Males: for his purpose is against Babel, to destroy her; for it is the vengeance of Jehovah, the vengeance of his temple. |
| 51:12 | Lift ye up a signal against the walls of Babel, strengthen the watch, set up the watchers, prepare the ambushes: for Jehovah also purposed and also did what he spake to the inhabitants of Babel. |
| 51:13 | Dwelling upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end came, the measure of thy plunder. |
| 51:14 | Jehovah of armies sware by his soul: That if I filled thee with men as with locusts, and they struck up a shout against thee. |
| 51:15 | He made the earth by his power, he prepared the habitable globe by his wisdom, and by his understanding he stretched forth the heavens. |
| 51:16 | For a voice he gives a multitude of waters in the heavens; and he will bring up the clouds, from the extremity of the earth, making lightnings to the rain, and he will bring forth the wind from his treasures. |
| 51:17 | Every man was brutish from knowledge; every founder was ashamed from his carved image: for his founding is a falsehood, and no spirit in them. |
| 51:18 | They are vanity, the work of delusions: in the time of reviewing they shall perish. |
| 51:19 | Not as these the portions of Jacob; for he the former of all: and the rod of his inheritance: Jehovah of armies his name. |
| 51:20 | Thou a mallet to me, a weapon of war: and I broke the nations in pieces with thee, and I destroyed kingdoms with thee; |
| 51:21 | And I broke in pieces with thee the horse and his rider; and I broke in pieces with thee the chariot and its charioteer; |
| 51:22 | And I broke in pieces with thee man and woman; and I broke in pieces with thee the old man and the boy; and I broke in pieces with thee the young man and the virgin; |
| 51:23 | And I broke in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and I broke in pieces with thee the husbandman and his yoke; and I broke in pieces with thee the prefects and the rulers. |
| 51:24 | And I recompensed to Babel and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil which they did in Zion before your eyes, says Jehovah. |
| 51:25 | Behold me against thee, thou destroying mountain, says Jehovah, destroying all the earth: and I stretched out my hand upon thee, and I rolled thee from the rocks, and I gave thee for a burnt mountain. |
| 51:26 | And they shall not take from thee a stone for a corner, and a stone for foundations; for thou shalt be desolations forever, says Jehovah. |
| 51:27 | Lift up a signal in the earth, strike ye the trumpet in the nations, consecrate the nations against her, cause ye to be heard against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint over her a satrap; bring up the horse as the bristling locust |
| 51:28 | Consecrate against her the nations, with the kings of the Medes, her prefects and all her rulers, and all the land of his dominion. |
| 51:29 | And the earth shall shake and be wearied; for the purpose of Jehovah was set up against Babel, to set the land of Babel for a desolation from not being inhabited. |
| 51:30 | The strong ones of Babel ceased to fight; they dwelt in fastnesses; their strength failed; they were for women: they burned her dwellings; her bars were broken. |
| 51:31 | A runner shall run to meet a runner, and he announcing, to meet him announcing, to announce to the king of Babel that his city was taken from the extremity. |
| 51:32 | And the passages were taken, and they burnt the ropes in fire, and the men of war trembled. |
| 51:33 | For thus said Jehovah of armies, God of Israel: the daughter of Babel is as a threshing-floor, the time of her treading; yet a little while and the time of harvest coming to her. |
| 51:34 | Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel consumed us, he destroyed us, he set us an empty vessel, he swallowed us down as a dragon, he filled his belly with my delicacies, he thrust us away. |
| 51:35 | My violence and my remainder upon Babel, shall she dwelling in Zion say; and my blood to the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. |
| 51:36 | For this, thus said Jehovah: Behold me pleading thy cause, and I took vengeance with thy vengeance; and I dried up her sea, and made her fountains dry. |
| 51:37 | And Babel was for heaps, a habitation of jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, from none inhabiting. |
| 51:38 | Together as lions shall they roar: they shook themselves as the lion's whelps. |
| 51:39 | In their heat I will set their drinkings, and I made them drunken so that they shall exult, and sleep an eternal sleep, and they shall not rouse up, says Jehovah. |
| 51:40 | I will bring them down as lambs for the slaughter, as rams with he goats. |
| 51:41 | How was Sheshach taken and the praise of all the earth will be seized; how was Babel for a desolation among the nations! |
| 51:42 | The sea came up against Babel: with the multitude of rolling waves was she covered. |
| 51:43 | Her cities were for a desolation, a land of dryness and a sterile region, a land not a man dwells in them, and not the son of man shall pass through them. |
| 51:44 | And I reviewed over Bel in Babel, and brought forth his swallowing from his mouth: and the nations shall no more flow to him: also the wall of Babel fell. |
| 51:45 | Go ye out from her midst, my people, and save ye each his soul from the burning of the anger of Jehovah. |
| 51:46 | And lest your heart shall be faint and ye be afraid for the report being heard in the land; and a report came in a year, and after it in a year a report, and violence in the land, dominion against dominion. |
| 51:47 | For this, behold, the days coming and I reviewed upon the carved images of Babel: and all her land shall be ashamed, and all her wounded shall fall in her midst |
| 51:48 | And the heavens and the earth shouted against Babel, and all which is in them: for those laying waste shall come against her from the north, says Jehovah. |
| 51:49 | Also Babel for the falling of the wounded of Israel, also for Babel fell the wounded of all the earth. |
| 51:50 | Being saved from the sword, go: ye shall not stand: remember from far off Jehovah, and Jerusalem shall come up upon your heart |
| 51:51 | We were ashamed for we heard reproach: shame covered our faces, for strangers came to the holy places of the house of Jehovah. |
| 51:52 | For this, behold, the days coming, says Jehovah, and I reviewed upon her carved images: and in all her land the wounded shall groan. |
| 51:53 | If Babel shall go up to the heavens, and if she shall fortify the height of her strength, from me shall they laying waste come to her, says Jehovah. |
| 51:54 | The voice of a cry from Babel, and a great breaking from the land of the Chaldeans: |
| 51:55 | For Jehovah laid Babel waste, and he destroyed from her the great voice: and the billows roared as many waters, and a noise of their voice was given. |
| 51:56 | For he spoiling came upon her, upon Babel, and her strong ones were taken, their bow was broken: for the God of recompenses, Jehovah requiting will requite. |
| 51:57 | And I made drunk her chiefs and her wise, her prefects and her rulers, and her strong ones: and they shall sleep an eternal sleep, and they shall not rise up, says the King, Jehovah of armies his name. |
| 51:58 | Thus said Jehovah of armies: The broad walls of Babel being demolished, shall be demolished, and her high gates shall be burnt in fire; the peoples shall labor in vain, the nations for the fire, and they shall be weary. |
| 51:59 | The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, son of Neriah, son of Maaseiah, in his going with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babel, in the fourth year to his reigning. And Seraiah was chief of the resting place. |
| 51:60 | And Jeremiah will write all the evil which shall come to Babel, in one book, all these words being written against Babel |
| 51:61 | And Jeremiah will say to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babel, and thou sawest, and didst read all these words, |
| 51:62 | And thou saidst, O Jehovah, thou spakest against this place, to cut it off, for none to be dwelling in it, to man and even to beast, for it shall be desolations forever. |
| 51:63 | And it was as thou finishedst to read this book, thou shalt bind upon it a stone and cast it into the midst of Phrath |
| 51:64 | And thou saidst, Thus shall Babel sink, and shall not rise from the face of the evil which I bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Even to this the words of Jeremiah. |
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.