Luke 8:4 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 when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable:
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 when a great multitude came together, and they of every city resorted unto him, he spake by a parable:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And a great crowd coming together, and those who were coming to him out of each city, he spoke by parable:
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 a great multitude having gathered, and those who from city and city were coming unto him, he spake by a simile:
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.
When a great multitude came together, and people from every city were coming to him, he spoke by a parable.
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.
Once, when a great crowd was collecting, and, when the people of town after town were flocking to Jesus, he spoke to them in the form of a parable,
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 when a great number of people came together, and men from every town went out to him, he gave them teaching in the form of a story:
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.
when a great multitude came together, and people from every city were coming to him he spoke by a parable:
Word-for-word swaps
- gathered→a
- come→coming
- spake→spoke
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.