Luke 11:44 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.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over are not aware .
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.
Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over [them] know it not.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Woe unto you, for ye are as the sepulchres which appear not, and the men walking over them do not know [it].
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye are as the unseen tombs, and the men walking above have not known.'
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.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
Alas for you! You are like unsuspected graves, over which men walk unawares.”
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Alas for you! You are like unsuspected graves, over which men walk unawares.’
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.
A curse is on you! for you are like the resting-places of dead men, which are not seen, and men go walking over them without knowledge of it.
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.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like hidden graves and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
Word-for-word swaps
- unto→to
- ye→you
- as→like
- that→who
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.