Exodus 7:18 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 the fish that in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.
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 the fish that are in the river shall die, and the river shall become foul; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink water from the river.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the fish that is in the river shall die; and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink the water out of the river.
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 the fish that are in the River die, and the River hath stank, and the Egyptians have been wearied of drinking waters from the River.'
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.
The fish that are in the river shall die, and the river shall become foul; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink water from the river.”’”
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 the fish in the Nile will come to destruction, and the river will send up a bad smell, and the Egyptians will not be able, for disgust, to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking.
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.
the fish that are in the river shall die, and the river shall become foul; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink water from the river.”’”
Word-for-word swaps
- stink→become
- lothe→loathe
- of→from
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.