1 Samuel 2:33 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.
And the man of thine, I shall not cut off from mine altar, to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart: and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age.
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 the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, [shall be] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy heart; and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the man of thine [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to cause thine eyes to fail and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house shall die in their vigour.
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 the man I cut not off of thine from Mine altar, is to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house do die men;
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.
The man of yours, whom I don’t cut off from my altar, will consume your eyes and grieve your heart; and all the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.
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.
But one man of your family will not be cut off by my hand, and his eyes will be made dark, and grief will be in his heart: and all the offspring of your family will come to their end by the sword of men.
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.
the man of yours, whom I don’t cut off from my altar, will consume your eyes, and grieve your heart: and all the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.
Word-for-word swaps
- thine→yours
- not→don’t
- mine→my
- to→will
- thine→your
- shall→will
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.