Isaiah 50:10 in 6 translations
6 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.
Who among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
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.
Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that obeyeth the voice of his servant? he that walketh in darkness, and hath no light, let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and rely upon his God.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that hearkeneth to the voice of his servant? he that walketh in darkness, and hath no light, let him confide in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Who is among you, fearing Jehovah, Hearkening to the voice of His servant, That hath walked in dark places, And there is no brightness for him? Let him trust in the name of Jehovah, And lean upon his God.
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.
Who among you fears Yahweh, and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness, and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name, and rely on his God.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Who among you has the fear of the Lord, giving ear to the voice of his servant who has been walking in the dark and has no light? Let him put his faith in the name of the Lord, looking to his God for support.
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.
Who among you fears Yahweh, and obeys the voice of his servant, He who walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in Yahweh’s name and rely on his God.
Word-for-word swaps
- obeyeth→fears
- walketh→He
- hath→has
- the→Yahweh’s
- upon→rely
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.