1 John 4:12 in 8 translations
7 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.
No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
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.
No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
No one has seen God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
God no one hath ever seen; if we may love one another, God in us doth remain, and His love is having been perfected in us;
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.
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love reaches perfection within us.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
No man has ever seen God: if we have love for one another, God is in us and his love is made complete in us:
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.
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
Word-for-word swaps
- hath→one
- dwelleth→remains
- is→has
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.