Luke 7:37 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, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
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, a woman who was in the city, a sinner; and when she knew that he was sitting at meat in the Pharisee`s house, she brought an alabaster cruse of ointment,
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
and behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, and knew that he was sitting at meat in the house of the Pharisee, having taken an alabaster box of myrrh,
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, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having known that he reclineth (at meat) in the house of the Pharisee, having provided an alabaster box of ointment,
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, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.
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.
Just then a woman, who was an outcast in the town, having heard that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of perfume,
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 there was a woman in the town who was a sinner; and when she had news that he was a guest in the Pharisee's house, she took a bottle of perfume,
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, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment,
Word-for-word swaps
- which→who
- meat→he
- box→jar
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.