Acts 16:33 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 he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.
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 he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And he took them the same hour of the night and washed [them] from their stripes; and was baptised, he and all his straightway.
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 having taken them, in that hour of the night, he did bathe them from the blows, and was baptized, himself and all his presently,
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.
He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household.
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.
And that very hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds, and he himself and everyone belonging to him were baptized without delay.
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 that same hour of the night, he took them, and when he had given attention to their wounds, he and all his family had baptism straight away.
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.
he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was immediately baptized, he and all his, household.
Word-for-word swaps
- straightway→household
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.