Judges 19:2 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 his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father’s house to Bethlehemjudah, and was there four whole months.
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 his concubine played the harlot against him, and went away from him unto her father`s house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there the space of four months.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him to her father's house to Bethlehem-Judah, and was there some time, four months.
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 commit whoredom against him doth his concubine, and she goeth from him unto the house of her father, unto Beth-Lehem-Judah, and is there days--four months.
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.
His concubine played the prostitute against him, and went away from him to her father’s house to Bethlehem Judah, and was there for four months.
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.
And his servant-wife was angry with him, and went away from him to her father's house at Beth-lehem-judah, and was there for four months.
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.
his concubine played the prostitute against him, and went away from him to her father’s house to Bethlehem Judah, and was there for four months.
Word-for-word swaps
- whore→prostitute
- unto→to
- Bethlehemjudah→Bethlehem
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.