Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 9:1 | I saw Jehovah standing upon the altar: and he will say, Strike the crown, and the thresholds shall tremble: and dash them in pieces upon the head of them all; and the last of them I will slay with the sword: the fleeing to them shall not flee, and he escaping to them shall not escape. |
| 9:2 | If they shall break through into hades, from thence shall my hand take them; and if they shall go up to the heavens, from thence I will bring them down. |
| 9:3 | And if they shall hide in the head of Carmel, from thence will I search and take them; and if they shall be concealed from before mine eyes in the bottom of the sea, from thence I will command the serpent, and he bit them. |
| 9:4 | If they shall go into captivity before the face of their enemies, from thence I will command the sword and it slew them: and I set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. |
| 9:5 | And the Lord Jehovah of armies touching upon the land, and it shall melt, and all dwelling in it mourned: and it came up as a river all of it, and it was overflowed as the river of Egypt. |
| 9:6 | He building his ascents in the heavens, and founding his arches upon the earth; he calling to the waters of the sea, and he will pour them forth upon the face of the earth: Jehovah his name. |
| 9:7 | Are ye not as the sons of the Cushites to me, O sons of Israel? says Jehovah. Did I not bring up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the rovers from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir? |
| 9:8 | Behold, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah upon the sinning kingdom, and I destroyed it from the face of the earth; only that destroying, I will not destroy the house of Jacob, says Jehovah. |
| 9:9 | For behold, I command, and I caused the house of Israel to move to and fro among all nations as it will move to and fro in a sieve, and a stone shall not fall to the earth. |
| 9:10 | By the sword shall all sinning of my people die, saying, It shall not draw near, and the evil shall not cleave about us. |
| 9:11 | In that day I will raise up the tent of David having fallen, and I walled in their breaches, and I will raise up its destructions, and I built it as the days of old: |
| 9:12 | So that they shall possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations which my name was called upon them, says Jehovah doing this |
| 9:13 | Behold, the days coming, says Jehovah, the ploughing touched upon the harvesting, and the treading of grapes upon the drawing of the seed; and the mountains dropped new wine, and all the hills shall melt. |
| 9:14 | And I turned back the captivity of my people Israel, and they built the cities laid waste, and they inhabited; and they planted vineyards, and they drank their wine; and they made gardens and ate their fruit |
| 9:15 | And I planted them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up from their land which I gave to them, said Jehovah thy God. |
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.