Exodus 13:14 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 it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
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 it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand Jehovah brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say to him, With a powerful hand Jehovah brought us out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
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 it hath been, when thy son asketh thee hereafter, saying, What is this? that thou hast said unto him, By strength of hand hath Jehovah brought us out from Egypt, from a house of servants;
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.
It shall be, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ that you shall tell him, ‘By strength of hand Yahweh brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage.
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 when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for this? say to him, By the strength of his hand the Lord took us out of Egypt, out of the prison-house:
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.
it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is this?’ that you shall tell him, By strength of hand Yahweh brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
Word-for-word swaps
- thy→your
- thee→asks
- this→is
- unto→you
- LORD→Yahweh
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.