Acts 20:19 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.
Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:
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.
serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind, and with tears, and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
serving the Lord with all lowliness, and tears, and temptations, which happened to me through the plots of the Jews;
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
serving the Lord with all humility, and many tears, and temptations, that befell me in the counsels of the Jews against me;
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.
serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews;
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.
serving the Lord, as I did, in all humility, amid the tears and trials which fell to my lot through the plots of some of the Jewish leaders.
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.
Doing the Lord's work without pride, through all the sorrow and troubles which came on me because of the evil designs of the Jews:
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.
Serving the Lord with all humility with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews:
Word-for-word swaps
- temptations→with
- befell→happened
- wait→plots
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.