Jeremiah 46:16 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.
He made many to fall, yea, one fell upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.
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.
He made many to stumble, yea, they fell one upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
He made many to stumble, yea, one fell upon another; and they said, Arise, and let us return to our own people and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
He hath multiplied the stumbling, Yea one hath fallen upon his neighbour, And they say: Rise, and we turn back to our people, And unto the land of our birth, Because of the oppressing sword.
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.
He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’
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.
... are stopped in their going, they are falling; and they say one to another, Let us get up and go back to our people, to the land of our birth, away from the cruel sword.
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.
He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another: they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’
Word-for-word swaps
- one→stumble
- upon→on
- nativity→birth
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.