Nahum 2:11 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.
Where the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, the old lion, walked, the lion’s whelp, and none made afraid?
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.
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion [and] the lioness walked, the lion`s whelp, and none made them afraid?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Where is [now] the den of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, the lioness, [and] the lion's whelp walked, and none made them afraid?
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Where is the habitation of lionesses? And a feeding-place it is for young lions Where walked hath a lion, an old lion, A lion's whelp, and there is none troubling.
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.
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid?
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.
Where now is the den of lions? Where now the lair of their young? Where the lion used to withdraw, with his cubs, with none to disturb them?
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.
Where is the lions' hole, the place where the young lions got their food, where the lion and the she-lion were walking with their young, without cause for fear?
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.
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, and the lioness walked, the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid?
Word-for-word swaps
- dwelling→den
- lion→lioness
- whelp→cubs
- none→no
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.