Leviticus 6:17 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.
It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
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.
It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as the sin-offering, and as the trespass-offering.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
It shall not be baken with leaven. As their portion have I given it [unto them] of my offerings by fire: it is most holy; as the sin-offering, and as the trespass-offering.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
It is not baken with any thing fermented, their portion I have given it, out of My fire-offerings; it is most holy, like the sin-offering, and like the guilt-offering.
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.
It shall not be baked with yeast. I have given it as their portion of my offerings made by fire. It is most holy, as the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
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.
It is not to be cooked with leaven. I have given it to them as their part of the offerings made by fire to me; it is most holy, as are the sin-offerings and the offerings for error.
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.
It shall not be baked with yeast. I have given it as their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
Word-for-word swaps
- baken→baked
- leaven→yeast
- for→as
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.