Joel 3:9 in 8 translations
7 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.
Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
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.
Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war; stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Proclaim this among the nations: prepare war, arouse the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Proclaim ye this among nations, Sanctify a war, stir up the mighty ones, Come nigh, come up, let all the men of war.
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.
Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Proclaim this among the nations, sanctify war. Arouse the warriors, let all the fighting men muster and go up.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up.
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.
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war, Stir up the mighty men, let all the warriors draw near; let them come up:
Word-for-word swaps
- Gentiles→nations
- wake→Stir
- war→warriors
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.