Proverbs 27:10 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.
Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: better a neighbour near than a brother far off.
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.
Thine own friend, and thy father`s friend, forsake not; And go not to thy brother`s house in the day of thy calamity: Better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not; and go not into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity: better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Thine own friend, and the friend of thy father, forsake not, And the house of thy brother enter not In a day of thy calamity, Better is a near neighbour than a brother afar off.
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.
Don’t forsake your friend and your father’s friend. Don’t go to your brother’s house in the day of your disaster: better is a neighbor who is near than a distant brother.
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.
Do not give up your friend and your father's friend; and do not go into your brother's house in the day of your trouble: better is a neighbour who is near than a brother far off.
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.
Don’t forsake your friend, and your father’s friend, Don’t go to your brother’s house in the day of your disaster: better is a neighbor who is near than a distant brother
Word-for-word swaps
- own→Don’t
- thy→your
- neither→Don’t
- thy→to
- calamity→your
- neighbour→neighbor
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.