John 3:13 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.
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven.
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.
And no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, [even] the Son of man, who is in heaven.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And no one has gone up into heaven, save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
and no one hath gone up to the heaven, except he who out of the heaven came down--the Son of Man who is in the heaven.
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.
No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
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.
No one has ascended to heaven, except him who descended from heaven – the Son of Man himself.
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.
And no one has ever gone up to heaven but he who came down from heaven, the Son of man.
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.
no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.
Word-for-word swaps
- hath→one
- to→into
- from→who
- which→who
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.