Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 3:1 | And he will cause me to see Joshua the great priest standing before the messenger of Jehovah, and the adversary standing upon his right hand for his adversary. |
| 3:2 | And Jehovah will say to the adversary, And Jehovah will rebuke in thee, thou adversary: and Jehovah having chosen in Jerusalem will rebuke in thee: is not this a fire-brand snatched from the fire? |
| 3:3 | And Joshua was clothed in filthy garments, and he stood before the messenger. |
| 3:4 | And he will answer and say to them standing before him, saying, Remove the filthy garments from off him, And he will say to him, See, I caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and clothed thee with festive garments. |
| 3:5 | And saying, They shall set a pure turban upon his head; and they will set the pure turban upon his head, and they will put on the garments. And the messenger of Jehovah stood. |
| 3:6 | And the messenger of Jehovah will protest to Joshua, saying, |
| 3:7 | Thus said Jehovah of armies: If thou wilt go in my way, and if thou shalt watch my watches, and thou also shalt judge my house, and also thou shalt watch my enclosure, and I gave to thee the goings between these standing by. |
| 3:8 | Hear now, O Joshua the great priest, thou and thy friends sitting before thee, for they are men of wonder: for behold me bringing my servant the Sprout. |
| 3:9 | For behold the stone which I gave before Joshua; upon one stone seven eyes: behold me engraving its engraving, says Jehovah of armies, and I removed the iniquity of that land in one day. |
| 3:10 | In that day, says Jehovah of armies, ye shall call each his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. |
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.