Luke 17:29 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.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed all.
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.
but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven, and destroyed all [of them]:
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 on the day Lot went forth from Sodom, He rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed all.
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.
but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.
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, on the very day on which Lot came out of Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the skies and destroyed them all.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
but, on the very day on which Lot came out of Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from the skies and destroyed them all.
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.
But on the day when Lot went out of Sodom, fire came down from heaven and destruction came on them all.
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.
But in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.
Word-for-word swaps
- of→from
- brimstone→sulfur
- heaven→the
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.