Psalms 146:9 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.
The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
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.
Jehovah preserveth the sojourners; He upholdeth the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Jehovah preserveth the strangers; he lifteth up the fatherless and the widow; but the way of the wicked doth he subvert.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Jehovah is preserving the strangers, The fatherless and widow He causeth to stand, And the way of the wicked He turneth upside down.
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.
Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
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.
The Lord preserves the stranger, upholds the widow and orphan, but the wicked he leads to disaster.
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.
The Lord takes care of those who are in a strange land; he gives help to the widow and to the child who has no father; but he sends destruction on the way of sinners.
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.
Yahweh preserves the foreigners. he upholds the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
Word-for-word swaps
- preserveth→Yahweh
- strangers→foreigners
- relieveth→upholds
- turneth→turns
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.