1 Corinthians 13:8 in 8 translations
8 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.
Charity never faileth: but whether prophecies, they shall fail; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall vanish away.
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.
Love never faileth: but whether [there be] prophecies, they shall be done away; whether [there be] tongues, they shall cease; whether [there be] knowledge, it shall be done away.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Love never fails; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be done away.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
The love doth never fail; and whether there be prophecies, they shall become useless; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall become useless;
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.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Love never fails. But, whether it be the gift of preaching, it will be done with; whether it be the gift of ‘tongues,’ it will cease; whether it be knowledge, it, too, will be done with.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Love never fails. But, whether it be the gift of preaching, it will be done with; whether it be the gift of “tongues,” it will cease; whether it be knowledge, it, too, will be done with.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · The Commonwealth spelling edition of the Open English Bible. Identical wording to the US edition apart from spelling.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Though the prophet's word may come to an end, tongues come to nothing, and knowledge have no more value, love has no end.
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.
Love never fails. but where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease; Where there is knowledge, it will be done away. with.
Word-for-word swaps
- Charity→Love
- faileth→fails
- whether→where
- tongues→will
- shall→will
- vanish→will
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.