Textus Receptus Bibles
Julia E. Smith Translation 1876
| 4:1 | Whence wars and fights among you? are they not hence, out of your sensual pleasures making war in your members |
| 4:2 | Ye eagerly desire, and have not: ye kill, and are zealous, and cannot succeed: ye fight and wage war, and ye have not, because ye ask not. |
| 4:3 | Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask wickedly that ye might expend upon your sensual pleasures. |
| 4:4 | Adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is the enmity of God? whoever therefore would wish to be the friend of the world is set the enemy of God. |
| 4:5 | Or think ye that the writing says vainly, That the spirit longs for envy, which dwelt in us? |
| 4:6 | And he gives greater grace. Wherefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. |
| 4:7 | Be subjected therefore to God. Resist the accuser, and he will flee from you. |
| 4:8 | Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse the hands, ye sinful; and purify the hearts, ye double souled. |
| 4:9 | Toil, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and joy to dejection. |
| 4:10 | Be ye humbled before the Lord, and he will lift you up. |
| 4:11 | Speak not against one another, brethren. He speaking against a brother, and judging his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law: and if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. |
| 4:12 | There is one legislator, able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another |
| 4:13 | Come on now, ye saying, To day or to morrow let us go to this city, and do there one year, and let us trade, and derive profit: |
| 4:14 | (Which know not that of the morrow. For what your life? For it is a steam, appearing for a little, and then invisible.) |
| 4:15 | For you should say, If the Lord will, and we live, and should do this, or that. |
| 4:16 | And now ye boast in your arrogance: all such boasting is evil. |
| 4:17 | Therefore to him knowing to do good, and not doing, to him it is sin. |
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.