Revelation 4:11 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.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
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.
Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
Thou art worthy, O our Lord and [our] God, to receive glory and honour and power; for *thou* hast created all things, and for thy will they were, and they have been created.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
`Worthy art Thou, O Lord, to receive the glory, and the honour, and the power, because Thou--Thou didst create the all things, and because of Thy will are they, and they were created.'
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.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!”
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive all praise, and honor, and power, for you did create all things, and at your bidding they came into being and were created.’
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive all praise, and honour, and power, for you did create all things, and at your bidding they came into being and were created.”
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.
It is right, our Lord and our God, for you to have glory and honour and power: because by you were all things made, and by your desire they came into being.
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.
worthy, are you, our Lord, and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory the honor, and the power: for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created.
Word-for-word swaps
- O→are
- honour→the
- hast→you
- pleasure→because
- are→existed
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.