Psalms 24:9 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.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
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.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors: And the King of glory will come in.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Lift up your heads, ye gates; yea, lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Lift up, O gates, your heads, And be lifted up, O doors age-during, And come in doth the king of glory!
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.
Lift up your heads, you gates; yes, lift them up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come in.
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.
Lift high your heads, you gates – Higher, you ancient doors; welcome the glorious king.
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.
Let your heads be lifted up, O doors; let them be lifted up, O you eternal doors: that the King of glory may come in.
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.
Lift up your heads, you gates; yes, lift them up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory will come in.
Word-for-word swaps
- ye→you
- even→yes
- shall→will
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.