Acts 3:25 in 8 translations
8 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.
Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.
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.
Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
*Ye* are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God appointed to our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`Ye are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant that God made unto our fathers, saying unto Abraham: And in thy seed shall be blessed all the families of the earth;
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.
You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘In your offspring will all the families of the earth be blessed.’
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
You yourselves are the heirs of the prophets, and heirs, too, of the covenant which God made with your ancestors, when he said to Abraham – ‘In your descendants will all the nations of the earth be blessed.’
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
You yourselves are the heirs of the prophets, and heirs, too, of the covenant which God made with your ancestors, when he said to Abraham – “In your descendants will all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · The Commonwealth spelling edition of the Open English Bible. Identical wording to the US edition apart from spelling.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
You are the sons of the prophets, and of the agreement which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, Through your seed a blessing will come on all the families of the earth.
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.
You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, in your offspring will all the families of the earth be blessed.’
Word-for-word swaps
- Ye→You
- unto→to
- shall→your
- kindreds→families
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.