2 Kings 7:10 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.
So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were.
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.
So they came and called unto the porter of the city; and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but the horses tied, and the asses tied, and the tents as they were.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And they came and called to the porters of the city, and told them saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one there, no sound of man, but the horses tied, and the asses tied, and the tents as they were.
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 they come in, and call unto the gatekeeper of the city, and declare for themselves, saying, `We have come in unto the camp of Aram, and lo, there is not there a man, or sound of man, but the bound horse, and the bound ass, and tents as they are.'
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.
So they came and called to the city gatekeepers; and they told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, not even a man’s voice, but the horses tied, and the donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.”
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.
So they came in, and, crying out to the door-keepers of the town, they gave them the news, saying, We came to the tents of the Aramaeans, and there was no one there and no voice of man, only the horses and the asses in their places, and the tents as they were.
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.
So they came and called to the city: gatekeepers; and they told them, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, not even a man’s voice but the horses tied, and the donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.
Word-for-word swaps
- of→to
- neither→not
- asses→the
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.