Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 26:1 | And it was when thou shalt come into the land which Jehovah thy God gave to thee an inheritance to possess it, and thou didst dwell in it: |
| 26:2 | And thou tookest from the first of all the fruit of the land which thou shalt bring from thy land which Jehovah thy God gave to thee, and put in a basket, and go to the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. |
| 26:3 | And go to the priest which shall be in those days, and say to him, I announced this day to Jehovah thy God, that I came to the land which Jehovah aware to our fathers to give to us. |
| 26:4 | And the priest took from thy hand the basket and set it down before the altar of Jehovah thy God. |
| 26:5 | And thou didst answer and say before Jehovah thy God, An unfortunate Syrian my father; and he went down into Egypt, and he will sojourn there with a few men, and will be there into a great nation, mighty and many. |
| 26:6 | And the Egyptians did us evil, and humbled us, and they will distribute to us hard service. |
| 26:7 | And we shall cry to Jehovah the God of our fathers, and Jehovah will hear our voice, and will see our affliction and our labor and our oppression. |
| 26:8 | And Jehovah will bring us forth out of Egypt with a strong hand and with an extended arm, and with great appearance and with signs and with wonders; |
| 26:9 | And he will bring us to this place, and will give us this land, a land flowing milk and honey. |
| 26:10 | And now, behold, I brought the first-fruits of the earth that thou Jehovah gave to me: and set thou it before Jehovah thy God, and worship before Jehovah thy God. |
| 26:11 | And rejoice in all the good that Jehovah thy God gave to thee and to thy house, thou and the Levite and the stranger which is in the midst of them. |
| 26:12 | When thou shalt finish to tithe all the tenth part of thy produce, in the third year the year of the tenth part, and thou gavest it to the Levite and to the stranger and to the orphan and to the widow, and they ate in thy gates and were satisfied. |
| 26:13 | And thou saidst before Jehovah thy God, I took away the holy thing from the house, and also I gave it to the Levite, and to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, according to all thy commands which thou didst command me: I passed not by from thy command, and I did not forget |
| 26:14 | I ate not from it in my mourning, and I took not away from it in uncleanness, and I gave not from it to the dead: I heard to the voice of Jehovah my God, I did according to all thou didst command me. |
| 26:15 | Look forth from thy holy habitation, from the heavens, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou gavest to us, as thou didst swear to our fathers, a land flowing milk and honey. |
| 26:16 | This day Jehovah thy God commands thee to do these laws and judgments: and watch thou to do them with all thy heart and with all thy soul. |
| 26:17 | Thou saidst this day Jehovah to be to thee for God, and to go in his ways, and to watch his laws and his commands, and his judgments, and to hear to his voice. |
| 26:18 | And Jehovah said thee this day to be to him for a people of property, as he spake to thee, and to watch all his commands, |
| 26:19 | And to give thee high above all the nations which he made for a beginning and for a name, and for an ornament, and for thy being a holy people to Jehovah thy God., as he spake. |
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.