Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 21:1 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 21:2 | Son of man, set thy face to Jerusalem, and drop to the holy places, and prophesy to the land of Israel; |
| 21:3 | And say to the land of Israel, Thus said Jehovah: behold me against thee, and I brought forth my sword from its sheath, and I cut off from thee the just and the unjust |
| 21:4 | Because that I cut off from thee the just and the unjust, for this my sword shall go forth from its sheath against all flesh, from south to north. |
| 21:5 | And all flesh knew that I Jehovah brought forth my sword from its sheath: it shall no more turn back |
| 21:6 | And thou son of man, sigh with the breaking of the loins; and with bitterness thou shalt sigh before their eyes. |
| 21:7 | And it was when they shall say to thee, For what sighest thou? and say, For the report, because it came: and every heart melted and all hands were relaxed, and every spirit was weak, and all knees shall go into water: behold, it came, and it was, says the Lord Jehovah. |
| 21:8 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 21:9 | Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus said Jehovah: say, A sword, a sword was sharpened, and also polished. |
| 21:10 | In order to slaughter a slaughter it was sharpened; in order for lightning to be to it, it was polished; then shall we exult? the rod of my son despised, every tree. |
| 21:11 | And he will give it to be polished, to be taken in the hand: this sword was sharpened, and it was polished to give it into the hand of him slaying. |
| 21:12 | Cry and wail, son of man, for it was upon my people, it was upon all the princes of Israel: terrors for the sword were upon my people: for this, strike upon thy thigh. |
| 21:13 | For it is a trial, and what if also the rod was rejected? it shall not be, says the Lord Jehovah. |
| 21:14 | And thou, son of man, prophesy, and strike hand to hand, and thou shalt double the sword the third time, the sword of the wounded: this the sword of the great wounded besieging them. |
| 21:15 | In order to melt the heart and to multiply the ruins, I gave the turning of the sword against all their gates: Ah! it was made for lightnings, it was polished for slaughter. |
| 21:16 | Unite thyself to the right, set thyself to the left, where thy face wavers. |
| 21:17 | And I also will strike my hand to my hand, and I caused my wrath to cease: I Jehovah spake. |
| 21:18 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 21:19 | And thou son of man, set to thee two ways for the sword of the king of Babel to come: from one land shall come forth they two, and form thou a hand, form upon the head of the way of the city. |
| 21:20 | Thou shalt set the way for the sword to come to Rabbath of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified. |
| 21:21 | For the king of Babel stood at the mother of the way in the head of the two ways, to divine a divination; he shook with the arrows, he asked in the family gods, he looked in the liver. |
| 21:22 | In his right hand was the divination of Jerusalem, to set battering-rams, to open the mouth in breaking in pieces, to lift up the voice with a loud noise, to set battering-rams against the gates, to throw up a mound, to build a watch-tower. |
| 21:23 | And it was to them as a divination of falsehood in their eyes, swearing an oath to them, remembering iniquity to be taken. |
| 21:24 | For this, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Because of your causing your iniquity to be remembered, in your transgressions being uncovered, for your sins to be seen in all your works; because of your causing to be remembered, ye shall be taken in hand. |
| 21:25 | And thou profane unjust prince of Israel, to whom his day came in the time of iniquity the end. |
| 21:26 | Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Remove the tiara, and lift up the crown: this not thus: lift up the low, and make low the high. |
| 21:27 | Perverted, perverted, perverted, will I set her: and this was not till he came which to him the judgment; and I gave him. |
| 21:28 | And thou son of man, prophesy and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah to the sons of Ammon, and for their reproach; and say, The sword, the sword was loosed: for slaughter it was polished, to consume for sake of the lightning: |
| 21:29 | In seeing vanity to thee, in divining to thee a lie to give thee, to the necks of the wounded of the unjust, to whom their day came in the time of iniquity the end. |
| 21:30 | Turn back; thou shalt not be naked: in the place where thou wert created, in the land of thy nativity, will I judge thee. |
| 21:31 | I poured out my wrath upon thee; in fire I made mine anger to pass over thee, and I gave thee into the hand of brutish men, machinating destruction. |
| 21:32 | Thou shalt be to the fire for consuming; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt not be remembered: for I Jehovah spake. |
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.