Deuteronomy 32:17 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.
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
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.
They sacrificed unto demons, [which were] no God, To gods that they knew not, To new [gods] that came up of late, Which your fathers dreaded not.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
They sacrificed unto demons who are not God; To gods whom they knew not, To new ones, who came newly up, Whom your fathers revered not.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
They sacrifice to demons--no god! Gods they have not known--New ones--from the vicinity they came; Not feared them have your fathers!
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.
They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.
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.
They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.
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.
They sacrificed to demons, not God; to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up, recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.
Word-for-word swaps
- whom→that
- not→didn’t
- whom→recently
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.