Ephesians 6:14 in 8 translations
7 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.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
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.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Stand therefore, having girt about your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about in truth, and having put on the breastplate of the righteousness,
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.
Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Stand your ground, then, with truth for your belt, and with righteousness for your breast-plate,
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Take your place, then, having your body clothed with the true word, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness;
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.
Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth, buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness;
Word-for-word swaps
- with→the
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.