Ezekiel 13:15 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.
Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered morter, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it;
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.
Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered [mortar]; and I will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And I will accomplish my fury upon the wall, and upon them that daub it with untempered [mortar], and will say unto you, The wall is no [more], neither they that daubed it,
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 I have completed My wrath on the wall, And on those daubing it with chalk, And I say to you: The wall is not, And those daubing it are not;
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.
Thus will I accomplish my wrath on the wall, and on those who have plastered it with whitewash. I will tell you, ‘The wall is no more, neither those who plastered it;
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.
So I will let loose my passion on the wall in full measure, and on those who put whitewash on it; and I will say to you, Where is the wall, and where are those who put whitewash on it?
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.
Thus will I accomplish my wrath on the wall, and on those who have plastered it with whitewash. I will tell you, The wall is no more, neither those who plastered it;
Word-for-word swaps
- upon→on
- that→on
- daubed→plastered
- and→whitewash
- unto→tell
- daubed→those
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.