Amos 5:15 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.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
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.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish justice in the gate: it may be that Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Hate evil, and love good, And set up judgment in the gate, It may be Jehovah, God of Hosts, doth pity the remnant of Joseph.
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.
Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
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.
Hate evil and love good, establish justice at the city gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to a surviving remnant of Joseph.
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.
Be haters of evil and lovers of good, and let right be done in the public place: it may be that the Lord, the God of armies, will have mercy on the rest of Joseph.
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.
Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. it may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Word-for-word swaps
- judgment→justice
- gate→courts
- hosts→Armies
- unto→to
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.