Hosea 4:5 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.
Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.
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.
And thou shalt stumble in the day, and the prophet also shall stumble with thee in the night; and I will destroy thy mother.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And thou shalt stumble by day; and the prophet also shall stumble with thee by night: and I will destroy thy mother.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
And thou hast stumbled in the day, And stumbled hath also a prophet with thee in the night, And I have cut off thy mother.
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.
You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.
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.
You stumble by day, and the prophet stumbles with you by night, and I will destroy your mother.
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.
You will not be able to keep on your feet by day, and by night the prophet will be falling down with you, and I will give your mother to destruction.
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.
You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night, and I will destroy your mother.
Word-for-word swaps
- fall→You
- fall→stumble
- thee→you
- thy→your
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.