Luke 20:16 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.
He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard they said, God forbid.
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.
He will come and destroy these husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
He will come and destroy those husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it they said, May it never be!
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
He will come, and destroy these husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others.' And having heard, they said, `Let it not be!'
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.
He will come and destroy these farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard it, they said, “May it never be!”
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
He will come and put those tenants to death, and will let the vineyard to others.” “Heaven forbid!” they exclaimed when they heard it.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
He will come and put those tenants to death, and will let the vineyard to others.’ ‘Heaven forbid!’ they exclaimed when they heard it.
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.
He will come and put them to destruction and give the garden to others. And when he said this, they said, May it not be so.
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.
He will come and destroy these farmers, and will give the vineyard to others. when they heard it, they said, “May it never be!”
Word-for-word swaps
- shall→will
- husbandmen→farmers
- forbid→May
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.