Hosea 7:9 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.
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.
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.
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth [it] not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he knoweth [it] not.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth [it] not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he knoweth [it] not.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Devoured have strangers his power, And he hath not known, Also old age hath sprinkled itself on him, And he hath not known.
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.
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he doesn’t realize it. Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, and he doesn’t realize it.
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.
Strangers have devoured his strength, but he does not know it. His hair is sprinkled with grey, but he does not notice.
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.
Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.
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.
Strangers have devoured his strength, and he doesn’t realize it Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, and he doesn’t realize it.
Word-for-word swaps
- knoweth→doesn’t
- yea→Indeed
- upon→on
- yet→and
- 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.