Zechariah 11:3 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.
There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
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.
A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! for their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions! for the pride of the Jordan is laid waste.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
A voice of howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
A voice of the howling of the shepherds! For destroyed was their robe of honour, A voice of the roaring of young lions! For destroyed was the excellency of Jordan.
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.
A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.
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.
Listen to the wailing of the shepherds! Their glory is destroyed. Listen to the roaring of young lions! Blasted is the thick forest of the Jordan.
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.
The sound of the crying of the keepers of the flock! for their glory is made waste: the sound of the loud crying of the young lions! for the pride of Jordan is made waste.
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.
a voice of the wailing of the shepherds; for their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of the Jordan is ruined.
Word-for-word swaps
- howling→wailing
- spoiled→destroyed
- spoiled→ruined
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.