Numbers 35:27 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 the revenger of blood find him without the borders of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of blood kill the slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood:
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 the avenger of blood find him without the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood slay the manslayer; he shall not be guilty of blood,
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
and the avenger of blood find him outside the limits of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kill the manslayer, there shall be no blood-guiltiness upon him;
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 redeemer of blood hath found him at the outside of the border of the city of his refuge, and the redeemer of blood hath slain the man-slayer, blood is not for him;
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.
and the avenger of blood finds him outside of the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the man slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood,
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 the giver of punishment, meeting him outside the walls of the town, puts him to death, he will not be responsible for his blood:
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.
And the avenger of blood finds him outside of the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the man slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood:
Word-for-word swaps
- revenger→avenger
- find→finds
- borders→outside
- city→border
- kill→kills
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.