Bible Verses
Translation comparison

1 Chronicles 10:12 in 6 translations

5 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.

Early modern English

Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.

King James Version
KJV

They arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

1611 / 1769 · Public domain · The Authorised Version, revised to the 1769 Blayney text. Includes the Apocrypha as printed in 1611.

Literal, word-for-word

Follows Hebrew and Greek word order and grammar closely, even where the English becomes stiff. Useful for seeing what the underlying sentence is doing.

American Standard Version · World English Bible
ASV
WEB

These 2 editions word this verse identically.

all the valiant men arose, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.

Darby Bible
DARBY

all the valiant men arose, and took up the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the terebinth of Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.

Young's Literal Translation
YLT

and all the men of valour rise and bear away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and bring them in to Jabesh, and bury their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fast seven days.

1898 · Public domain · The most extreme word-for-word rendering here, keeping Hebrew and Greek tense and word order at the cost of natural English.

Simplified English

Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.

Bible in Basic English
BBE

All the fighting-men came up and took away Saul's body and the bodies of his sons, and took them to Jabesh, and put their bones to rest under the oak-tree in Jabesh, and took no food for seven days.

1949 · Public domain · Written with roughly a thousand basic English words plus a small Bible vocabulary. The plainest reading available here.

What changes between the King James and modern wording

The modern rendering is printed below with every word that differs from the King James text marked, so the actual divergence is visible rather than left for you to spot.

all the valiant men, arose, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

The verses either side

King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.

11And when all Jabesh-gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul,
12They arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
13So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it;

Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.