Habakkuk 3:10 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.
The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
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.
The mountains saw thee, and were afraid; The tempest of waters passed by; The deep uttered its voice, And lifted up its hands on high.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
The mountains saw thee, they were in travail: Torrents of waters passed by; The deep uttered its voice, Lifted up its hands on high.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Seen thee--pained are mountains, An inundation of waters hath passed over, Given forth hath the deep its voice, High its hands it hath lifted up.
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.
The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The storm of waters passed by. The deep roared and lifted up its hands on high.
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.
The mountains see you and writhe. The tempest of waters sweeps by. The great deep sends forth its voice, and lifts up its hands.
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.
The mountains saw you and were moved with fear; the clouds were streaming with water: the voice of the deep was sounding; the sun did not come up, and the moon kept still in her place.
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.
The mountains saw you, and were afraid. the storm of waters passed by: the deep roared and lifted up its hands on high.
Word-for-word swaps
- thee→you
- trembled→were
- overflowing→storm
- water→waters
- voice→roared
- his→its
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.