Romans 2:22 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.
Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
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.
thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob temples?
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
thou that sayest [man should] not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
thou who art preaching not to steal, dost thou steal? thou who art saying not to commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou who art abhorring the idols, dost thou rob temples?
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.
You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
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.
Do you forbid adultery, and yet commit adultery? Do you loathe idols, and yet plunder temples?
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.
You who say that a man may not be untrue to his wife, are you true to yours? you who are a hater of images, do you do wrong to the house of God?
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.
You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
Word-for-word swaps
- sayest→You
- not→shouldn’t
- thou→Do
- abhorrest→You
- sacrilege→do
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.