Mark 11:27 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 they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders,
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 they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders;
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And they come again to Jerusalem. And as he walked about in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders come to him,
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 they come again to Jerusalem, and in the temple, as he is walking, there come unto him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders,
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.
They came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders came to him,
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.
They came to Jerusalem again. While Jesus was walking about in the Temple Courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the Law, and the elders came up to him.
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 they came again to Jerusalem: and while he was walking in the Temple, there came to him the chief priests and the scribes and those in authority:
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.
they came again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, came to him,
Word-for-word swaps
- come→came
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.