Acts 17:21 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.
(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
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.
(Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.)
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Now all [the] Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else than to tell and to hear the news.
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 all Athenians, and the strangers sojourning, for nothing else were at leisure but to say something, and to hear some newer thing.
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.
Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
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.
(All Athenians and the foreigners staying in the city found no time for anything else but telling, or listening to, the last new thing.)
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.
(Now all the Athenians and the men from other lands who come there were giving all their time to talking or hearing of anything new.)
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.
Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
Word-for-word swaps
- For→Now
- were→living
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.