Acts 16:22 in 8 translations
7 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 the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.
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 the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent their garments off them, and commanded to beat them with rods.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the crowd rose up too against them; and the praetors, having torn off their clothes, commanded to scourge [them].
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 multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates having torn their garments from them, were commanding to beat them with rods,
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.
The multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, and commanded them to be beaten with rods.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
The mob rose as one person against them, and the Magistrates stripped them of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
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 the people made an attack on them all together: and the authorities took their clothing off them, and gave orders for them to be whipped.
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.
the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates tore their clothes, from them, and commanded them. to be beaten with rods.
Word-for-word swaps
- off→tore
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.