Revelation 18:1 in 8 translations
8 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.
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
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.
After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
After these things I saw another angel descending out of the heaven, having great authority: and the earth was lightened with his glory.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
And after these things I saw another messenger coming down out of the heaven, having great authority, and the earth was lightened from his 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.
After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
After this I saw another angel, descending from heaven, invested with great authority; and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
After this I saw another angel, descending from heaven, invested with great authority; and the earth was illuminated by his splendour.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · The Commonwealth spelling edition of the Open English Bible. Identical wording to the US edition apart from spelling.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was bright with his glory.
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.
after these things I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. the earth was illuminated with his glory.
Word-for-word swaps
- come→coming
- heaven→out
- and→authority
- lightened→illuminated
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.