Nahum 3:14 in 8 translations
8 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.
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
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.
Draw thee water for the siege; strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Waters of a siege draw for thyself, Strengthen thy fortresses, Enter into mire, and tread on clay, Make strong a brick-kiln.
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.
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
“Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts. Go to the clay pits and tread the clay; take up the brick moulds.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
‘Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts. Go to the clay pits and tread the clay; take up the brick moulds.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · The Commonwealth spelling edition of the Open English Bible. Identical wording to the US edition apart from spelling.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks.
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.
Draw water for the siege, Strengthen your fortresses. go into the clay, and tread the mortar. make the brick kiln strong.
Word-for-word swaps
- waters→water
- holds→Strengthen
- morter→mortar
- brickkiln→brick
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.