Joel 1:17 in 8 translations
8 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.
The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
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.
The seeds rot under their clods; the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
The seeds are rotten under their clods, the granaries are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Rotted have scattered things under their clods, Desolated have been storehouses, Broken down have been granaries, For withered hath the corn.
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.
The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
The grains shrivel under their hoes, the storehouses are desolate, the barns broken down, for the grain is withered.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
The grains shrivel under their hoes, the storehouses are desolate, the barns broken down, for the corn is withered.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · The Commonwealth spelling edition of the Open English Bible. Identical wording to the US edition apart from spelling.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the grain is dry and dead.
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.
The seeds rot under their clods, the granaries are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain has withered.
Word-for-word swaps
- rotten→seeds
- garners→granaries
- is→grain
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.