Numbers 5:25 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.
Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar:
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 priest shall take the meal-offering of jealousy out of the woman`s hand, and shall wave the meal-offering before Jehovah, and bring it unto the altar:
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the priest shall take out of the woman's hand the oblation of jealousy, and shall wave the oblation before Jehovah, and shall present it at the altar.
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 priest hath taken out of the hand of the woman the present of jealousy, and hath waved the present before Jehovah, and hath brought it near unto the altar;
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.
The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.
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 priest will take from her hand the meal offering of doubt, waving it before the Lord, and will take it to the altar;
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.
the priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar:
Word-for-word swaps
- jealousy→meal
- LORD→Yahweh
- offer→bring
- upon→to
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.