James 3:12 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.
Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
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.
Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? Neither [can] salt water yield sweet.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Can, my brethren, a fig produce olives, or a vine figs? Neither [can] salt [water] make sweet water.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
is a fig-tree able, my brethren, olives to make? or a vine figs? so no fountain salt and sweet water is able to make.
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.
Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh water.
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.
Can a fig tree, my friends, bear olives? Or a vine bear figs? No, nor can a brackish well give good water.
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.
Is a fig-tree able to give us olives, my brothers, or do we get figs from a vine, or sweet water from the salt sea?
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.
Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine, figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh. water.
Word-for-word swaps
- the→a
- either→brothers
- so→Thus
- fountain→spring
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.