Deuteronomy 11:10 in 6 translations
6 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.
For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst with thy foot, as a garden of herbs:
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.
For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
For the land, whither thou enterest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs;
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`For the land whither thou art going in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt whence ye have come out, where thou sowest thy seed, and hast watered with thy foot, as a garden of the green herb;
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.
For the land, where you go in to possess, isn’t like the land of Egypt, that you came out of, where you sowed your seed, and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs;
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
For the land where you are going is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you put in your seeds, watering them with your foot, like a planted garden:
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.
For the land, where you go in to possess isn’t like the land of Egypt, that you came out, of, where you sowed your seed, and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs:
Word-for-word swaps
- goest→where
- as→isn’t
- ye→that
- thy→you
- wateredst→watered
- thy→your
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.