Psalms 39:12 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.
Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I a stranger with thee, a sojourner, as all my fathers
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.
Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, and give ear unto my cry; Hold not thy peace at my tears: For I am a stranger with thee, A sojourner, as all my fathers were.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Hear my prayer, Jehovah, and give ear unto my cry; be not silent at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, a sojourner, like all my fathers.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
Hear my prayer, O Jehovah, And to my cry give ear, Unto my tear be not silent, For a sojourner I am with Thee, A settler like all my fathers.
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.
“Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
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.
Hear my prayer, O Lord; attend to my cry for help. Hold not your peace at my tears. For I am but a guest of yours, a stranger visiting, like all my ancestors.
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 my prayer come to your ears, O Lord, and give attention to my cry, make an answer to my weeping: for my time here is short before you, and in a little time I will be gone, like all my fathers.
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.
Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry; Don’t be silent at my tears: for I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
Word-for-word swaps
- LORD→Yahweh
- unto→to
- peace→Don’t
- thee→you
- sojourner→foreigner
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.