Translation comparison

Jeremiah 39:6 in 6 translations

5 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.

Read with nearby context Open chapter 39

Early modern English

Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.

King James Version · American Standard Version

KJV

ASV

These 2 editions word this verse identically.

Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

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.

Darby Bible

DARBY

And the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes, and the king of Babylon slaughtered all the nobles of Judah;

1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.

Young's Literal Translation

YLT

And the king of Babylon slaughtereth the sons of Zedekiah, in Riblah, before his eyes, yea, all the freemen of Judah hath the king of Babylon slaughtered.

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.

World English Bible

WEB

Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah.

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.

Bible in Basic English

BBE

Then the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes in Riblah: and the king of Babylon put to death all the great men of Judah.

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.

Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes: the king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah.

Word-for-word swaps

the→killed
slew→also

The verses either side

King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.

5But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him.

6Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

7Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.

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.