Psalms 32:4 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.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
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.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: My moisture was changed [as] with the drought of summer. Selah
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
When by day and by night Thy hand is heavy upon me, My moisture hath been changed Into the droughts of summer. Selah.
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.
For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
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.
for day and night did your hand lie heavy upon me. The sap of my life was dried up as with fierce summer-heat.Selah
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.
For the weight of your hand was on me day and night; my body became dry like the earth in summer. (Selah.)
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.
For day and night your hand was heavy on me: my strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
Word-for-word swaps
- thy→your
- upon→on
- into→strength
- drought→heat
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.