Deuteronomy 28:40 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.
Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint with the oil; for thine olive shall cast
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.
Thou shalt have olive-trees throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast [its fruit].
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Olive-trees shalt thou have throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; for thine olive-tree shall cast its fruit.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
olives are to thee in all thy border, and oil thou dost not pour out, for thine olive doth fall off.
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.
You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives will drop off.
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.
Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit.
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 will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives will drop off.
Word-for-word swaps
- shalt→You
- coasts→your
- not→you
- cast→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.