Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 6:1 | And the word of Jehovah will be to me, saying, |
| 6:2 | Son of man, set thy face to the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, |
| 6:3 | And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus said the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the torrents and to the valleys: behold me, I bring the sword upon you, and I destroyed your heights. |
| 6:4 | And your altars were laid waste, and your images were broken: and I caused your wounded to fall before your blocks. |
| 6:5 | And I gave the carcasses of the sons of Israel before their blocks; and I scattered your bones round about your altars. |
| 6:6 | In all your dwellings the cities shalt be laid waste, and the heights shall be made desolate; so that your altars shall be laid waste and destroyed, and your blocks were broken and ceased, and your images were cut down, and your works were wiped away. |
| 6:7 | And the wounded fell in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah. |
| 6:8 | And I left in being to you them escaping the sword among the nations, in my scattering you in the lands. |
| 6:9 | And those escaping of you remembered me among the nations where they were carried captive there, because I was broken with their heart of a harlot, which turned away from me, and their eyes committing fornication after their blocks: and they loathed in their faces for the evils which they did for all their abominations. |
| 6:10 | And they shall know that I am Jehovah; not in vain spake I to do to them this evil. |
| 6:11 | Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Strike with thy hand and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the famine and by the sword and by death. |
| 6:12 | He being far off, in death shall he die; and he being near shall fall by the sword; and he remaining and he being besieged shall die by famine: and I finished my wrath upon them. |
| 6:13 | And ye knew that I am Jehovah in their wounded being in the midst of their blocks round about their altars, upon every high hill, upon all the heads of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they gave there an odor of sweetness to all their blocks. |
| 6:14 | And I stretched forth my hand upon them, and I gave the land a desolation and an astonishment from the desert of Diblath, in all their dwellings: and they shall know that I am Jehovah. |
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.