Ezekiel 44:3 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.
It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
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 for the prince, he shall sit therein as prince to eat bread before Jehovah; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
As for the prince, he, the prince, shall sit in it to eat bread before Jehovah: he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
The prince, who is prince, he sitteth by it to eat bread before Jehovah, by the way of the porch of the gate he cometh in, and by its way he goeth out.'
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 for the prince, he shall sit in it as prince to eat bread before Yahweh. He shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.”
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.
But the ruler will be seated there to take his food before the Lord; he will go in by the covered way to the door, and will come out by the same way.
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 for the prince; he shall sit in it as prince to eat bread before Yahweh. he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.
Word-for-word swaps
- is→As
- LORD→Yahweh
- that→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.