Psalms 14:4 in 8 translations
7 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.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
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.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people [as] they eat bread, And call not upon Jehovah?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, eating up my people [as] they eat bread? They call not upon Jehovah.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Have all working iniquity not known? Those consuming my people have eaten bread, Jehovah they have not called.
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.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on Yahweh?
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Have they learned their lesson, those workers of evil? Who ate up my people, eating, devouring, never calling to the Lord.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Have all the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food as they would take bread; they make no prayer to the Lord.
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.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on Yahweh?
Word-for-word swaps
- LORD→on
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.