Ezekiel 42:3 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.
Over against the twenty cubits which were for the inner court, and over against the pavement which was for the utter court, was gallery against gallery in three stories.
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.
Over against the twenty [cubits] which belonged to the inner court, and over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third story.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
over against the twenty [cubits] that pertained to the inner court, and over against the pavement that pertained to the outer court; there was gallery against gallery in the third [story];
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Over-against the twenty cubits that are to the inner court, and over-against the pavement that is to the outer court, is gallery over-against gallery, in the three storeys.
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.
Opposite the twenty cubits which belonged to the inner court, and opposite the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third floor.
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.
Opposite the space of twenty cubits which was part of the inner square, and opposite the stone floor of the outer square. There were covered ways facing one another on the third floor.
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.
Opposite the twenty cubits which belonged to the inner court, and opposite the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third floor.
Word-for-word swaps
- against→Opposite
- for→belonged
- utter→outer
- stories→the
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.