Jonah 3:9 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.
Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
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.
Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Who knoweth but that God will turn and repent, and will turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Who knoweth? He doth turn back, and God hath repented, and hath turned back from the heat of His anger, and we do not perish.'
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.
Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Who knows? God may relent and avert his fierce anger, so that we may not die.”
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Who knows? God may relent and avert his fierce anger, so that we may not die.’
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.
Who may say that God will not be turned, changing his purpose and turning away from his burning wrath, so that destruction may not overtake us?
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.
Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not? perish?”
Word-for-word swaps
- if→knows
- repent→relent
- perish→might
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.