Jeremiah 45:5 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 seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
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 seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not; for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith Jehovah; but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek [them] not; for behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith Jehovah; but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou shalt go.
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 thou--thou seekest for thee great things--do not seek, for lo, I am bringing in evil on all flesh--an affirmation of Jehovah--and I have given to thee thy life for a spoil, in all places whither thou goest.'
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.
Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them; for, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh,’ says Yahweh; ‘but I will let you escape with your life wherever you go.’”
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 as for you, are you looking for great things for yourself? Have no desire for them: for truly I will send evil on all flesh, says the Lord: but your life I will keep safe from attack wherever you go.
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.
Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them for, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh,’ says Yahweh; but I will let you escape with your life wherever you go.’”
Word-for-word swaps
- thou→Do
- thyself→yourself
- upon→on
- LORD→flesh
- goest→will
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.