Joshua 7:5 in 6 translations
6 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 the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them before the gate unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
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 the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men; and they chased them [from] before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them at the descent; and the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty-six men; and they pursued them from before the gate to Shebarim, and smote them on the descent. Then the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
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 the men of Ai smite of them about thirty and six men, and pursue them before the gate unto Shebarim, and they smite them in Morad; and the heart of the people is melted, and becometh water.
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 men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them, and they chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. The hearts of the people melted, and became like water.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
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 men of Ai put to death about thirty-six of them, driving them from before the town as far as the stoneworks, and overcoming them on the way down: and the hearts of the people became like water.
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 men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them and they chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. the hearts of the people melted, and became like water.
Word-for-word swaps
- smote→struck
- unto→even
- in→at
- wherefore→descent
- as→like
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.