Isaiah 63:5 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.
And I looked, and none to help; and I wondered that none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
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 I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my wrath, it upheld me.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: and mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
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 I look attentively, and there is none helping, And I am astonished that there is none supporting, And give salvation to me doth mine own arm. And my wrath--it hath supported me.
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.
I looked, and there was no one to help; and I wondered that there was no one to uphold: therefore my own arm brought salvation to me; and my own wrath upheld me.
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.
And I saw that there was no helper, and I was wondering that no one gave them support: so my arm did the work of salvation, and my wrath was my 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.
I looked, and there was no one to help; and I wondered that there was no one to uphold: therefore my own arm brought salvation to me; and my own wrath upheld me.
Word-for-word swaps
- none→there
- mine→my
- unto→to
- it→own
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.