Deuteronomy 11:25 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.
There shall no man be able to stand before you: the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
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.
There shall no man be able to stand before you: Jehovah your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath spoken unto you.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
No man shall be able to stand before you: the fear of you and the dread of you will Jehovah your God lay upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
no man doth station himself in your presence; your dread and your fear doth Jehovah your God put on the face of all the land on which ye tread, as He hath spoken to you.
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.
No man will be able to stand before you. Yahweh your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you tread on, as he has spoken to you.
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.
All people will give way before you: for the Lord your God will put the fear of you on all the land through which you go, as he has said.
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.
no man will be able to stand before you: Yahweh your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you tread on, as he has spoken to you.
Word-for-word swaps
- LORD→Yahweh
- shall→will
- upon→on
- shall→you
- unto→has
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.