Ezekiel 42:11 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 way before them was like the appearance of the chambers which were toward the north, as long as they, and as broad as they: and all their goings out were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
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 way before them was like the appearance of [the way of] the chambers which were toward the north; according to their length so was their breadth: and all their egresses were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
and a passage before them, like the appearance of the cells that were toward the north, according to their length, according to their breadth and all their goings out, and according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
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 way before them is as the appearance of the chambers that are northward, according to their length so is their breadth, and all their outlets, and according to their fashions, and according to their openings.
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 way before them was like the appearance of the rooms which were toward the north; according to their length so was their width: and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
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 there was a walk in front of them like that by the rooms on the north; they were equally long and wide; and the ways out of them were the same in design and had the same sort of doors.
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 way before them was like the appearance of the rooms which were toward the north, according to their length so was their width: and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.
Word-for-word swaps
- chambers→rooms
- they→according
- out→exits
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.