Hosea 11:2 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.
As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.
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 more [the prophets] called them, the more they went from them: they sacrificed unto the Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto the Baals, and burned incense to graven images.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
They have called to them rightly, They have gone from before them, To lords they do sacrifice, And to graven images they make perfume.
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.
They called to them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images.
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 more I called them, the further they went away from me. They kept sacrificing to Baals and making offerings to idols.
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.
When I sent for them, then they went away from me; they made offerings to the Baals, burning perfumes to images.
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.
they called to them, so they went from them: they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images.
Word-for-word swaps
- Baalim→to
- graven→engraved
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.