Bible Verses
Translation comparison

Deuteronomy 24:11 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.

King James Version
KJV

Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.

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.

American Standard Version
ASV

Thou shalt stand without, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring forth the pledge without unto thee.

1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.

Darby Bible
DARBY

Thou shalt stand outside, and the man to whom thou hast made a loan shall bring out the pledge to thee without.

1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.

Young's Literal Translation
YLT

at the outside thou dost stand, and the man on whom thou art lifting it up is bringing out unto thee the pledge at the outside.

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.

World English Bible
WEB

You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside 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.

Bible in Basic English
BBE

But keep outside till he comes out and gives it to you.

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 shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside to you.

Word-for-word swaps

  • shaltYou
  • abroadoutside
  • dostyou
  • theeoutside

The verses either side

King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.

10When thou dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge.
11Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.
12And if the man poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge:

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.