Leviticus 2:13 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 every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
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 every oblation of thy meal-offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meal-offering: with all thine oblations thou shalt offer salt.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And every offering of thine oblation shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thine oblation: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
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 every offering--thy present--with salt thou dost season, and thou dost not let the salt of the covenant of thy God cease from thy present; with all thine offerings thou dost bring near salt.
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.
Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.
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 every meal offering is to be salted with salt; your meal offering is not to be without the salt of the agreement of your God: with all your offerings give salt.
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.
every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt; You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering: with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
Word-for-word swaps
- oblation→offering
- meat→your
- thou→you
- suffer→You
- thy→your
- thine→your
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.