Luke 16:18 in 8 translations
7 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.
Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from husband committeth adultery.
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.
Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth one that is put away from a husband committeth adultery.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Every one who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery; and every one that marries one put away from a husband commits adultery.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`Every one who is sending away his wife, and marrying another, doth commit adultery; and every one who is marrying her sent away from a husband doth commit adultery.
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.
Everyone who divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman is an adulterer, and the man who marries a divorced woman is an adulterer.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Everyone who puts away his wife and takes another, is a false husband: and he who is married to a woman whose husband has put her away, is no true husband to her.
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.
Everyone who divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery: He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.
Word-for-word swaps
- away→Everyone
- marrieth→marries
- committeth→commits
- that→He
- away→divorced
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.