Exodus 29:30 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.
that son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy
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.
Seven days shall the son that is priest in his stead put them on, when he cometh into the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
The son that is priest in his stead shall put them on seven days, when he cometh into the tent of meeting to serve in the sanctuary.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
seven days doth the priest in his stead (of his sons) put them on, when he goeth in unto the tent of meeting, to minister in the sanctuary.
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.
Seven days shall the son who is priest in his place put them on, when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the holy place.
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.
For seven days the son who becomes priest in his place will put them on when he comes into the Tent of meeting to do the work of the holy place.
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.
Seven days shall the son who is priest in his place put them on when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the holy place.
Word-for-word swaps
- that→Seven
- that→who
- shall→place
- cometh→comes
- tabernacle→Tent
- congregation→Meeting
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.