Hosea 10:9 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.
O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.
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.
O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood; the battle against the children of iniquity doth not overtake them in Gibeah.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
From the days of Gibeah hast thou sinned, O Israel: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
From the days of Gibeah thou hast sinned, O Israel, There they have stood, Not overtake them in Gibeah doth battle, Because of sons of perverseness.
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.
“Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah. There they remained. The battle against the children of iniquity doesn’t overtake them in Gibeah.
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.
From the time of Gibeah, Israel has sinned. There they took their stand. Will not war overtake them in Gibeah because of the wicked?
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.
O Israel, you have done evil from the days of Gibeah; there they took up their position, so that the fighting against the children of evil might not overtake them in Gibeah.
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.
Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they remained. the battle against the children of iniquity doesn’t overtake them. in Gibeah.
Word-for-word swaps
- hast→you
- stood→remained
- not→doesn’t
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.