Psalms 31:2 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.
Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
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.
Bow down thine ear unto me; deliver me speedily: Be thou to me a strong rock, A house of defence to save me.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Incline thine ear to me, deliver me speedily; be a strong rock to me, a house of defence to save me.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Incline unto me Thine ear hastily, deliver me, Be to me for a strong rock, For a house of bulwarks to save me.
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.
Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me.
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.
incline to me your ear. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a rock of defence, a fortified house, to save me.
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 ear be turned to me; take me quickly out of danger; be my strong Rock, my place of strength where I may be safe.
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.
Bow down your ear to me; deliver me speedily: be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me.
Word-for-word swaps
- thine→your
- my→to
- an→a
- defence→defense
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.