Habakkuk 1:17 in 8 translations
7 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.
Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?
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.
Shall he therefore empty his net, and spare not to slay the nations continually?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Shall he therefore empty his net, and not spare to slay the nations continually?
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Doth he therefore empty his net, And continually to slay nations spare not?
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.
Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Will they empty their nets continually, slaughter nations unpityingly?
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
For this cause his net is ever open, and there is no end to his destruction of the nations.
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.
Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations? without mercy?
Word-for-word swaps
- they→Will
- their→his
- slay→kill
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.