Luke 11:39 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.
And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.
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 Lord said unto him, Now ye the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
But the Lord said to him, Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but your inward [parts] are full of plunder and wickedness.
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 Lord said unto him, `Now do ye, the Pharisees, the outside of the cup and of the plate make clean, but your inward part is full of rapine and wickedness;
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 Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
But the Master said to him, “You Pharisees do, it is true, clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you yourselves are filled with greed and wickedness.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
But the Master said to him, ‘You Pharisees do, it is true, clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you yourselves are filled with greed and wickedness.
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.
And the Lord said to him, You Pharisees make the outside of the cup and the plate clean; but inside you are thieves and full of evil.
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 Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
Word-for-word swaps
- unto→to
- ye→you
- clean→cleanse
- ravening→extortion
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.