Zephaniah 1:13 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.
Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
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.
And their wealth shall become a spoil, and their houses a desolation: yea, they shall build houses, but shall not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but shall not drink the wine thereof.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And their wealth shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation; and they shall build houses, and not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and not drink the wine thereof.
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 their wealth hath been for a spoil, And their houses for desolation, And they have built houses, and do not inhabit, And they have planted vineyards, And they do not drink their wine.
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.
Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.
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.
Their wealth will become a prey and their houses a desolation. Though they build houses, they will not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they will not drink wine from them.
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.
And their wealth will be violently taken away, and their houses will be made waste: they will go on building houses and never living in them, and planting vine-gardens but not drinking the wine from them.
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.
their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation: Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them; they will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine
Word-for-word swaps
- shall→wealth
- booty→plunder
- also→will
- not→won’t
- shall→will
- the→their
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.