Hosea 14:3 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.
Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
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.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, [Ye are] our gods; for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, [Thou art] our God; because in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Asshur doth not save us, on a horse we ride not, Nor do we say any more, Our God, to the work of our hands, For in Thee find mercy doth the fatherless.'
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.
Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds 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.
Assyria will not save us, nor Egyptian warhorses, and we will no more call the work of our hands our gods. For in you orphan Israel finds mercy.
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.
Assyria will not be our salvation; we will not go on horses; we will not again say to the work of our hands, You are our gods; for in you there is mercy for the child who has no father.
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.
Assyria can’t save us; we won’t ride on horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.
Word-for-word swaps
- not→Assyria
- not→won’t
- upon→on
- thee→you
- findeth→finds
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.