Luke 24:13 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, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem threescore furlongs.
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 behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was threescore furlongs from Jerusalem.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And behold, two of them were going on the same day to a village distant sixty stadia from Jerusalem, called Emmaus;
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, lo, two of them were going on during that day to a village, distant sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, the name of which is Emmaus,
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.
Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem.
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.
It happened that very day that two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem,
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.
And then, two of them, on that very day, were going to a little town named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.
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.
behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem
Word-for-word swaps
- went→were
- same→very
- called→named
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.