Amos 2:14 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.
Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:
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.
And flight shall perish from the swift; and the strong shall not strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver his soul.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
And perished hath refuge from the swift, And the strong strengtheneth not his power, And the mighty delivereth not his soul.
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.
Flight will perish from the swift; and the strong won’t strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself;
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.
Then flight will fail the swift, and the strength of the strongest will be useless. The warrior will not save his life,
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 flight will be impossible for the quick-footed, and the force of the strong will become feeble, and the man of war will not get away safely:
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.
flight will perish from the swift, and the strong won’t strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:
Word-for-word swaps
- shall→will
- not→won’t
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.