How do I loop through elements inside a div?

Question

I have to make a custom function for search/replace text, because firefox counts text nodes differently than IE, Google Chrome, etc..

I am trying to use this code, that I saw at Firefox WhiteSpace Issue since in my other function, I am looping numerically through nodes, which serves my functional needs perfectly, in other browsers.

But refuses to work, as part of a search/replace function that takes place after some ajax content is loaded.

Here is the code, that I have tried to get to work, but I must be missing the correct understanding of the context of how to loop thru elements inside a div.

// get all childnodes inside div
function div_translate(divid) {

    // list child nodes of parent
    if (divid != null) {

        // var children = parent.childNodes, child;
        var parentNode = divid;

        // start loop thru child nodes
        for(var node=parentNode.firstChild;node!=null;node=node.nextSibling){

            // begin check nodeType
            if(node.nodeType == 1){

                // get value of this node
                var value = content(node);

                // get class of this node
                var myclass = node.attr('class');

                console.log(myclass);

                // begin check if value undefined
                if (typeof(value) != 'undefined' && value != null) {

                    console.log(value);

                    // it is a text node. do magic.
                    for (var x = en_count; x > 0; x--) {

                        // get current english phrase
                        var from = en_lang[x];

                        // get current other language phrase
                        var to = other_lang[x];

                        if (value.match(from)) {
                            content(node, value.replace(from, to));
                        }
                    }

                }
                // end check if value undefined

            }
            // end check nodeType

        }
        // end loop thru child nodes

    }
}