John 12:28 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.
Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, I have both glorified and will glorify again.
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.
Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, [saying], I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, I both have glorified and will glorify [it] again.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Father, glorify Thy name.' There came, therefore, a voice out of the heaven, `I both glorified, and again I will glorify it;'
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.
Father, glorify your name!” Then there came a voice out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Father, honor your own name.” At this there came a voice from heaven, which said, “I have already honored it, and I will honor it again.”
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Father, honour your own name.’ At this there came a voice from heaven, which said, ‘I have already honoured it, and I will honour it again.’
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.
Father, give glory to your name. Then there came a voice out of heaven, saying, I have given it glory, and I will give it glory again.
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.
Father, glorify your name. Then there came a voice out of the sky, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
Word-for-word swaps
- thy→your
- heaven→out
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.