Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 3:1 | Behold me sending my messenger, and he looked upon the way before my face: and suddenly Jehovah whom ye seek shall come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in: behold him coming, said Jehovah of armies. |
| 3:2 | And who enduring the day of his coming? and who standing in his being seen? for he is as the fire of the crucible, as the alkali of the fuller. |
| 3:3 | And he sat melting and cleansing silver: and he cleansed the sons of Levi, and he purified them as gold and as silver, and they were to Jehovah bringing near the sacrifice in justice. |
| 3:4 | And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem was pleasant to Jehovah, as the days of old and as the former years. |
| 3:5 | And I came near to you for judgment: and I was a swift witness against those practicing magic, and against those committing adultery, and against those swearing to falsehood, and against those oppressing the hire of the hireling, the widow and the orphan, and those turning aside the stranger, and they feared not me, said Jehovah of armies. |
| 3:6 | For I am Jehovah, I changed not; and ye the sons of Jacob were not finished. |
| 3:7 | For from the days of your fathers ye departed from my laws, and ye watched not. Turn back to me and I will turn back to you, said Jehovah of armies. And ye said, In what shall we turn back? |
| 3:8 | Will man defraud God? For ye defraud me. And ye said, In what did we defraud thee? The tenths and the offerings. |
| 3:9 | Ye are cursed with a curse: and ye defrauded me, the nation all of it |
| 3:10 | Bring ye all the tenths to the house of treasure, and food shall be in my house, and try me now in this, said Jehovah of armies, if I will not open to you the lattices of the heavens, and empty out to you a blessing, even is it not a sufficiency. |
| 3:11 | And I rebuked upon the eater for you, and he shall not corrupt for you the fruit of the earth; and the vine in the field shall not be barren to you, says Jehovah of armies. |
| 3:12 | And all nations pronounced you happy, for ye shall be a land of delight, said Jehovah of armies. |
| 3:13 | Your words were strong against me, said Jehovah. And ye said, What did we speak against thee? |
| 3:14 | Ye said, Vanity to serve God: and what profit that we watched his watches, and that we went mourning from the face of Jehovah of armies? |
| 3:15 | And now we pronounce the proud happy; also they working injustice were built up; also they tried Jehovah and they will be delivered. |
| 3:16 | Then they fearing Jehovah spake each to his neighbor, and Jehovah will attend and will hear, and write a book of remembrance before him for those fearing Jehovah, and for thinking upon his name. |
| 3:17 | And they were to me, said Jehovah of armies, for the day which I make wealth; and I spared for them as a man will spare for the son serving him. |
| 3:18 | And ye turned back and saw between the just to the unjust, and between him serving God and to him serving him not |
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.