Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 1:1 | The lifting up which Habbakuk the prophet saw. |
| 1:2 | How long, O Jehovah, did I cry for help, and thou wilt not bear? I will cry to thee violence, and thou wilt not save. |
| 1:3 | Wherefore wilt thou cause me to see vanity and cause me to look at labor? and oppression and violence before me, and there will be contention, and strife will be raised up. |
| 1:4 | For this, the law will be slack, and judgment will not go forth forever: for the unjust surrounds the just; for this perverted judgment will go forth. |
| 1:5 | See ye among the nations, and look, and wonder; ye shall wonder: for the working a work in your days ye will not believe if it shall be recounted. |
| 1:6 | For behold me raising up the Chaldeans, the nation bitter and hasty, going upon the wide places of the land to possess the dwelling not to him. |
| 1:7 | He terrible and dreadful: his judgment and his elevation shall come forth from himself, |
| 1:8 | And his horses were swift above panthers, and they were sharp above the wolves of the evening: and his horsemen were spread, and his horsemen shall come from far off; they shall fly as the eagle hastening to eat |
| 1:9 | Wholly for violence shall he come: the host of their faces forwards, and he shall gather a captivity as the sand. |
| 1:10 | And he shall scoff at kings, and princes a derision to him: at every fortress he shall deride, and he shall heap up dust and take it |
| 1:11 | Then the spirit changed, and he will pass over, and he transgressed: this his strength is his God. |
| 1:12 | Art thou not from of old, O Jehovah, my holy God? We shall not die. O Jehovah, thou didst set him for judgment; and O Rock, thou didst found him for correction. |
| 1:13 | Being pure of eyes from beholding evil, and wilt not be able to look upon labor: wherefore wilt thou look upon the transgressors? wilt thou be silent in the unjust swallowing the just above him? |
| 1:14 | And wilt thou make man as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping thing no ruler over him? |
| 1:15 | And he brought up a completion with the book, he will drag him in his net, and he will gather him in his fishnet: for this he will rejoice and be glad. |
| 1:16 | For this he will sacrifice to his net and burn incense to his fish-net; for by them his portion fat and his food. growing fat |
| 1:17 | For this, will he empty his net; and he will not spare to slay the nations continually. |
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.