Matthew 13:34 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.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
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.
All these things spake Jesus in parables unto the multitudes; and without a parable spake he nothing unto them:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and without a parable he did not speak to them,
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
All these things spake Jesus in similes to the multitudes, and without a simile he was not speaking to them,
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.
Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the multitudes; and without a parable, he didn’t speak to them,
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.
Of all this Jesus spoke to the crowd in parables; indeed to them he used never to speak at all except in parables,
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.
All these things Jesus said to the people in the form of stories; and without a story he said nothing to them:
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.
Jesus spoke All these things in parables; to the multitudes; and without a parable he didn’t speak to them:
Word-for-word swaps
- unto→didn’t
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.