Jeremiah 48:18 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.
Thou daughter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst; for the spoiler of Moab shall come upon thee, and he shall destroy thy strong holds.
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.
O thou daughter that dwellest in Dibon, come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab is come up against thee, he hath destroyed thy strongholds.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Come down from [thy] glory and sit in the drought, O inhabitress, daughter of Dibon; the spoiler of Moab is come up against thee, thy strongholds hath he destroyed.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Come down from honour, sit in thirst, O inhabitant, daughter of Dibon, For a spoiler of Moab hath come up to thee, He hath destroyed thy fenced places.
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.
“You daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you. He has destroyed your strongholds.
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.
Come down from your glory, O people of Dibon, and take your seat in the place of the waste; for the attacker of Moab has gone up against you, sending destruction on your strong places.
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 daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you. he has destroyed your strongholds.
Word-for-word swaps
- Thou→You
- inhabit→who
- thy→your
- spoiler→destroyer
- shall→has
- and→up
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.