Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 3:1 | Hear this word which Jehovah spake against you, ye sons of Israel, against all the family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, |
| 3:2 | You only did I know from all the families of the earth: for this I will review over you all your iniquities. |
| 3:3 | Shall two go together if they met not by appointment? |
| 3:4 | Will the lion roar in the forest and not tearing in pieces for him? will the young lion give his voice from his cave if he took nothing? |
| 3:5 | Will the bird fall upon the snare of the earth and no noose for her? shall a snare be brought up from the earth and a taking shall not be taken? |
| 3:6 | If the trumpet shall be struck in the city and the people not be terrified? if evil shall be in the city and Jehovah did not? |
| 3:7 | For the Lord Jehovah will not do a word but he will uncover his secret to his servants the prophets. |
| 3:8 | The lion roared, who shall not be afraid? the Lord Jehovah spake, who shall not prophesy? |
| 3:9 | Cause to be heard upon the palaces in Ashdod, and upon the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Be ye gathered together upon the mountains of Shomeron, and see the great tumults in the midst of her, and the oppressed in the midst of her. |
| 3:10 | And they knew not to do the straight, says Jehovah, storing up violence and oppression in their palaces. |
| 3:11 | For this, thus said the Lord Jehovah: An adversary and round about the land; and he brought down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces were plundered. |
| 3:12 | Thus said Jehovah: As the shepherd will deliver from the mouth of the lion two legs, and part of an ear, thus shall the sons of Israel be delivered dwelling in Shomeron in the extremity of a tribe, or in Damascus under a roof. |
| 3:13 | Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, says the Lord Jehovah, God of armies. |
| 3:14 | For in the day of my reviewing the transgressions of Israel upon him, and reviewed upon the altars of the house of God: and the horns of the altar were broken, and they fell to the earth. |
| 3:15 | And I struck the house of autumn with the house of summer; and the houses of ivory perished, and the great houses were taken away, says 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.