Nehemiah 11:25 in 6 translations
6 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 for the villages, with their fields, of the children of Judah dwelt at Kirjath-arba, and the villages thereof, and at Dibon, and in the villages thereof, and at Jekabzeel, and the villages thereof,
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 as for the villages, with their fields, some of the children of Judah dwelt in Kiriath-arba and the towns thereof, and in Dibon and the towns thereof, and in Jekabzeel and the villages thereof,
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And as to the hamlets in their fields, [some] of the children of Judah dwelt in Kirjath-Arba and its dependent villages, and in Dibon and its dependent villages, and in Jekabzeel and its dependent villages,
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 at the villages with their fields, of the sons of Judah there have dwelt, in Kirjath-Arba and its small towns, and in Dibon and its small towns, and in Jekabzeel and its villages,
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.
As for the villages, with their fields, some of the children of Judah lived in Kiriath Arba and its towns, in Dibon and its towns, in Jekabzeel and its villages,
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
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 for the daughter-towns with their fields, some of the men of Judah were living in Kiriath-arba and its daughter-towns, and in Dibon and its daughter-towns, and in Jekabzeel and its daughter-towns,
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.
As for the villages, with their fields, some of the children of Judah lived in Kiriath Arba and its towns, in Dibon, and its towns, in Jekabzeel, and its villages
Word-for-word swaps
- And→As
- thereof→lived
- at→its
- the→its
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.
Not shown for this verse: Open English Bible (US), Open English Bible (Commonwealth). Those translations are still incomplete in the corpus, and empty cards are not padded in.