Ezekiel 45:4 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.
The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, which shall come near to minister unto the LORD: and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary.
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.
It is a holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, that come near to minister unto Jehovah; and it shall be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
This is the holy [portion] of the land; it shall be for the priests who do the service of the sanctuary, who draw near to serve Jehovah, and it shall be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.
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 holy portion of the land it is; for priests, ministrants of the sanctuary, it is, who are drawing near to serve Jehovah; and it hath been to them a place for houses, and a holy place for a sanctuary.
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.
It is a holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to Yahweh. It shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary.
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.
This holy part of the land is to be for the priests, the servants of the holy place, who come near to the Lord to do his work; it is to be a place for their houses and for grass-land and for cattle.
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.
It is a holy portion of the land it shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to Yahweh. it shall be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.
Word-for-word swaps
- The→It
- shall→who
- and→to
- an→a
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.