Ezekiel 45:9 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.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD.
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.
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute justice and righteousness; take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord Jehovah.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Let it suffice you, princes of Israel! Put away violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice; take off your exactions from my people, saith the Lord Jehovah.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Enough to you--princes of Israel; violence and spoil turn aside, and judgment and righteousness do; lift up your exactions from off My people--an affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.
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.
“‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Let it suffice you, princes of Israel: remove violence and plunder, and execute justice and righteousness; dispossessing my people,” says the Lord Yahweh.
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 is what the Lord has said: Let this be enough for you, O rulers of Israel: let there be an end of violent behaviour and wasting; do what is right, judging uprightly; let there be no more driving out of my people, says the Lord.
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.
Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Let it suffice you, princes of Israel: remove violence and plunder, and execute justice, and righteousness; dispossessing my people, says the Lord Yahweh.
Word-for-word swaps
- saith→says
- GOD→Yahweh
- spoil→plunder
- from→and
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.