Acts 24:18 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.
Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.
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.
amidst which they found me purified in the temple, with no crowd, nor yet with tumult: but [there were] certain Jews from Asia--
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Whereupon they found me purified in the temple, with neither crowd nor tumult. But it was certain Jews from Asia,
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
in which certain Jews from Asia did find me purified in the temple, not with multitude, nor with tumult,
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.
amid which certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, not with a mob, nor with turmoil.
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 it was while engaged in this that they found me in the Temple, after completing a period of purification, but not with any crowd or disorder.
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 having been made clean, I was in the Temple, but not with a great number of people, and not with noise: but there were certain Jews from Asia,
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.
amid which certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, not with a mob, nor with turmoil.
Word-for-word swaps
- Whereupon→amid
- neither→not
- multitude→a
- tumult→turmoil
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.