Matthew 22:11 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 the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
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.
But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the king, having gone in to see the guests, beheld there a man not clothed with a wedding garment.
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 the king having come in to view those reclining, saw there a man not clothed with clothing of the marriage-feast,
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.
But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who didn’t have on wedding clothing,
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.
But, when the king went in to see his guests, he noticed there a man who had not put on a wedding-robe.
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.
But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a guest's robe;
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.
But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who didn’t have on wedding clothing,
Word-for-word swaps
- And→But
- not→who
- garment→clothing
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.