2 Maccabees 4:9 in 2 translations
2 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.
Beside this, he promised to assign an hundred and fifty more, if he might have licence to set him up a place for exercise, and for the training up of youth in the fashions of the heathen, and to write them of Jerusalem by the name of Antiochians.
1611 / 1769 · Public domain · The Authorised Version, revised to the 1769 Blayney text. Includes the Apocrypha as printed in 1611.
Modern English
Contemporary vocabulary and punctuation, aiming for the sentence a present-day reader would write while staying close to the source.
and beside this, he undertook to assign a hundred and fifty more, if it might be allowed him through the king’s authority to set him up a Greek place of exercise and form a body of youths to be trained therein, and to register the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
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 Beside this, he undertook to assign a hundred and fifty more, if it might be allowed him through the king’s authority to set him up a Greek place of exercise, and form a body of youths to be trained therein, and to register the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch.
Word-for-word swaps
- promised→undertook
- an→a
- he→it
- licence→be
- for→of
- fashions→form
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: American Standard Version, Darby Bible, Young's Literal Translation, Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth), Bible in Basic English. Most modern translations do not include the Apocrypha.