Ezekiel 22:22 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.
As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.
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.
As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I, Jehovah, have poured out my wrath upon you.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I Jehovah have poured out my fury upon you.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
As the melting of silver in the midst of a furnace, So are ye melted in its midst, And ye have known that I, Jehovah, I have poured out My fury upon you.'
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.
As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I, Yahweh, have poured out my wrath on you.’”
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.
As silver becomes soft in the oven, so you will become soft in it; and you will be certain that I the Lord have let loose my passion on you.
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.
As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I Yahweh, have poured out my wrath on you.’”
Word-for-word swaps
- midst→middle
- ye→you
- thereof→middle
- shall→you
- LORD→Yahweh
- you→wrath
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.