Bible Verses
Translation comparison

Jeremiah 4:30 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.

King James Version
KJV

And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.

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.

American Standard Version
ASV

And thou, when thou art made desolate, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair; [thy] lovers despise thee, they seek thy life.

1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.

Darby Bible
DARBY

And thou, wasted one, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rendest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair: [thy] lovers despise thee, they seek thy life.

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 thou, O spoiled one, what dost thou? For thou puttest on scarlet, For thou adornest thyself with ornaments of gold. For thou rendest with pain thine eyes, In vain thou dost make thyself fair, Kicked against thee have doting ones, Thy life they do seek.

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

You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.

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

And you, when you are made waste, what will you do? Though you are clothed in red, though you make yourself beautiful with ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes wide with paint, it is for nothing that you make yourself fair; your lovers have no more desire for you, they have designs on your life.

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.

You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain Your lovers despise you. they seek your life.

Word-for-word swaps

  • AndYou
  • spoiledyou
  • thouwill
  • thyselfyou
  • crimsonscarlet
  • theeyou

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.