Luke 21:11 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.
And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
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 there shall be great earthquakes, and in divers places famines and pestilences; and there shall be terrors and great signs from heaven.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
there shall be both great earthquakes in different places, and famines and pestilences; and there shall be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
great shakings also in every place, and famines, and pestilences, there shall be; fearful things also, and great signs from heaven there shall 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.
There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
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.
and there will be great earthquakes, and plagues and famines in various places, and there will be terrible appearances and signs in the heavens.
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.
There will be great earth-shocks and outbursts of disease in a number of places, and men will be without food; and there will be wonders and great signs from heaven.
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.
There will be great earthquakes famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
Word-for-word swaps
- And→There
- sights→plagues
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.