1 Chronicles 17:24 in 6 translations
6 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.
Let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for ever, saying, The LORD of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel: and let the house of David thy servant be established before thee.
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.
And let thy name be established and magnified for ever, saying, Jehovah of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel: and the house of David thy servant is established before thee.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Let it even be established, and let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, is God to Israel; and let the house of David thy servant be established before thee.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
and let it be stedfast, and Thy name is great unto the age, saying, Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, is God to Israel, and the house of Thy servant David is established before Thee;
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.
Modern English
Contemporary vocabulary and punctuation, aiming for the sentence a present-day reader would write while staying close to the source.
Let your name be established and magnified forever, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel. The house of David your servant is established before you.’
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
So let your words be made certain and your name be made great, when men say, The Lord of armies is the God of Israel; and when the family of David your servant is made strong before you.
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.
Let your name be established and magnified forever, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel: the house of David your servant is established before you.’
Word-for-word swaps
- thy→your
- ever→forever
- LORD→Yahweh
- hosts→Armies
- be→is
- thee→you
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
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.