2 Kings 10:8 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 there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.
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 there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king`s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And a messenger came and told him saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.
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 messenger cometh in, and declareth to him, saying, `They have brought in the heads of the sons of the king,' and he saith, `Make them two heaps at the opening of the gate till the morning.'
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.
A messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.” He said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.”
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.
And a man came and said to him, They have come with the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Put them down in two masses at the doorway of the town till the morning.
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.
a messenger, came and told him, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. he said, Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.
Word-for-word swaps
- in→entrance
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.