Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 8:1 | Thus the Lord Jehovah caused me to see: and behold, a basket of fruit. |
| 8:2 | And he will say, Amos, what seest thou? And saying, A basket of fruit. And Jehovah will say to me: The end came upon my people Israel; I will no more add to pass by to him. |
| 8:3 | The songs of the temple wailed in that day, says the Lord Jehovah; many a corpse in every place being cast forth: silence. |
| 8:4 | Hear this, ye, panting after the needy, to cause the humble of the, land to cease. |
| 8:5 | Saying, When will the month pass through, and we will sell grain? and the Sabbath, and we will open wheat to diminish the ephah, and to enlarge the shekel, and to make crooked the balance of deceit? |
| 8:6 | To buy the poor with silver, and the needy for shoes; and we will sell the refuse of the grain. |
| 8:7 | Jehovah sware by the pride of Jacob, If I will forget forever all their works. |
| 8:8 | For this shall not the land be moved, and all dwelling in it, mourn? And it came up all of it as a river; and it was driven out and watered as the river of Egypt |
| 8:9 | And it was in that day, says the Lord Jehovah, I caused the sun to set at noon, and I darkened the light to the earth in that day: |
| 8:10 | And turned your festivals into mourning, and all your songs to lamentation; and I brought up sackcloth upon all loins, and upon every head, baldness; and I set it as the mourning of an only one, and its last part as a day of bitterness. |
| 8:11 | Behold, the days coming, says the Lord Jehovah, and I sent famine into the land; not a faniine for bread, and not a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of Jehovah. |
| 8:12 | And they wandered from sea even to sea, and from the north and even to the sunrising, they shall run up and down to seek the word of Jehovah and they shall not find. |
| 8:13 | In that day the fair virgins shall faint, and the young men, for thirst. |
| 8:14 | They swearing by the trespass of Shomeron, and they said, Thy God lives, O Dan, and the way of the well of the oath lives, and they fell, and they shall rise no more. |
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.