Esther 1:11 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.
To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she fair to look on.
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.
to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the peoples and the princes her beauty; for she was fair to look on.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal crown to shew the peoples and the princes her beauty; for she was of beautiful countenance.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
to bring in Vashti the queen before the king, with a royal crown, to shew the peoples and the heads her beauty, for she is of good appearance,
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.
to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal crown, to show the people and the princes her beauty; for she was beautiful.
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.
to bring Queen Vashti before him with the royal diadem on her head, to show her beauty to the people and the officials, for she was very beautiful.
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.
That Vashti the queen was to come before him, crowned with her crown, and let the people and the captains see her: for she was very beautiful.
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.
To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal, crown, to show the people and the princes her beauty: for she was beautiful.
Word-for-word swaps
- shew→show
- on→was
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.