2 Kings 12:12 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 to masons, and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewed stone to repair the breaches of the house of the LORD, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
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 to the masons and the hewers of stone, and for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the breaches of the house of Jehovah, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
and to masons, and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the breaches of the house of Jehovah, and for all that had to be laid out on the house for repairs.
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 to those repairing the wall, and to hewers of stone, and to buy wood and hewn stones to strengthen the breach of the house of Jehovah, and for all that goeth out on the house, to strengthen it.
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.
and to the masons and the stone cutters, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the damage to Yahweh’s house, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
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 to the wall-builders and the stone-cutters, and to get wood and cut stone for building up the broken parts of the house of the Lord, and for everything needed to put the house in good order.
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.
And to the masons, and the stone, cutters, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the damage to Yahweh’s house and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
Word-for-word swaps
- of→the
- buy→for
- hewed→cut
- the→damage
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.