Deuteronomy 7:16 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.
And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that a snare 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.
And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God will give up unto thee; thine eye shall not spare them, and thou shalt not serve their gods; for that would be a snare unto thee.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`And thou hast consumed all the peoples whom Jehovah thy God is giving to thee; thine eye hath no pity on them, and thou dost not serve their gods, for a snare it is to thee.
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 shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare 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.
And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin 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 consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them: You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.
Word-for-word swaps
- shalt→You
- thy→peoples
- thine→to
- no→not
- thou→You
- thee→to
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.