Translation comparison

2 Samuel 13:7 in 6 translations

6 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.

Read with nearby context Open chapter 13

Early modern English

Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.

King James Version

KJV

Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon’s house, and dress him meat.

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.

American Standard Version

ASV

Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon`s house, and dress him food.

1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.

Darby Bible

DARBY

And David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go, I pray thee, to thy brother Amnon's house, and dress him food.

1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.

Young's Literal Translation

YLT

And David sendeth unto Tamar, to the house, saying, `Go, I pray thee, to the house of Amnon thy brother, and make for him food.'

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.

World English Bible

WEB

Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go now to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.”

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.

Bible in Basic English

BBE

Then David sent to the house for Tamar and said, Go now to your brother Amnon's house and get a meal for him.

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.

Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him

Word-for-word swaps

thy→your
dress→prepare

The verses either side

King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.

6So Amnon lay down, and made himself sick: and when the king was come to see him, Amnon said unto the king, I pray thee, let Tamar my sister come, and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat at her hand.

7Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go now to thy brother Amnon’s house, and dress him meat.

8So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house; and he was laid down. And she took flour, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and did bake the cakes.

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.