Acts 25:18 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.
Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed:
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.
Concerning whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought no charge of such evil things as I supposed;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
concerning whom the accusers, standing up, brought no such accusation of guilt as *I* supposed;
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
concerning whom the accusers, having stood up, were bringing against him no accusation of the things I was thinking of,
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.
Concerning whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought no charge of such things as I supposed;
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.
But, when his accusers came forward, they brought no charge of wrong-doing such as I had expected;
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.
But when they got up they said nothing about such crimes as I had in mind:
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.
Concerning whom when the accusers stood up, they brought no charge of such things as I supposed:
Word-for-word swaps
- Against→Concerning
- accusation→no
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.