Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 2:1 | And I determined this to myself, not to come to you again in sadness. |
| 2:2 | For if I grieve you, and who is he making me glad, except he being grieved by me |
| 2:3 | And I wrote this same to you lest, coming, I should have sadness from whom I ought to rejoice, trusting to you all, that mine is the joy of you all. |
| 2:4 | For out of much pressure and anxiety of heart I wrote to you through many tears; not that ye should be 'grieved, but that ye might know the love I have more abundantly towards you. |
| 2:5 | And if any have grieved, he has not grieved me, but by part; that I might not overload you all. |
| 2:6 | Sufficient to such a one this enjoyment of the esteem of the many. |
| 2:7 | So that on the contrary ye should rather show kindness, and console, lest perhaps such be swallowed down with more abundant sadness. |
| 2:8 | Wherefore I beseech you to confirm love to him. |
| 2:9 | For, for this I also wrote, that I might know the proof of you, if ye are obedient for all things. |
| 2:10 | And to whom ye show any favor; I also: for also if I have shown any kindness, to whom I have shown kindness, through you in the face of Christ; |
| 2:11 | That we might not be taken advantage of by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his inventions. |
| 2:12 | And coming to Troas for the good news of Christ, and a door having been opened to me in the Lord, |
| 2:13 | I have had no relaxation to my spirit, in my not finding Titus my brother: but having taken leave of them, I went out to Macedonia. |
| 2:14 | Grace to God, always leading us to triumph in Christ, and making manifest the order of his knowledge by us in every place. |
| 2:15 | For we are to God a sweet odor of Christ, in the saved, and in the host: |
| 2:16 | Truly to those an odor of death into death; and to those an odor of life into life. And who sufficient for these things? |
| 2:17 | For we are not as the many adulterating the word of God: but as of purity, but as of God, before the face of God speak we in Christ. |
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.