Acts 28:26 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.
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:
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.
saying, Go thou unto this people, and say, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
saying, Go to this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear and not understand, and seeing ye shall see and not perceive.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
saying, Go on unto this people and say, With hearing ye shall hear, and ye shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and ye shall not perceive,
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.
saying, ‘Go to this people, and say, in hearing, you will hear, but will in no way understand. In seeing, you will see, but will in no way perceive.
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.
Go to this nation and say: You will hear with your ears without ever understanding, and, though you have eyes, you will see without ever perceiving.
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.
Go to this people and say, Though you give ear, you will not get knowledge; and seeing, you will see, but the sense will not be clear to you:
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.
Saying, Go to this people, and say, in Hearing you will hear, but will in no way understand; In seeing you will see, but will in no way perceive:
Word-for-word swaps
- unto→to
- shall→you
- not→but
- and→In
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.