What the Publisher of the ESV Bible Says after 17 Years of Work on the Translation

The English Standard Version Bible will now go permanently unchanged in all future editions. 

The Crossway Board of Directors officially announced the decision, saying it was "the culmination of more than 17 years of comprehensive work by the Translation Oversight Committee."

Crossway made the final changes to the Bible this summer. The publisher says the minor changes "represented a substantial improvement in the precision, accuracy, and understanding of the ESV."

"In contrast to the ESV, some Bible versions have followed a 'thought-for-thought' rather than 'word-for-word' translation philosophy," Crossway says. "The ESV is an 'essentially literal' translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the orginial text and personal style of each Bible writer."

The ESV Bible is based strictly on the orginal Greek and Hebrew manuscripts.

Some of the changes include 1 Kings 8:48, which once read "If they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies," now reads "If they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies."

Another example is James 2:10, which once read, "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it," to now saying "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."

Now that Crossway has made the final changes to the ESV, they are giving the fruit of their labor back to the Lord. 

"With the work of translating the ESV Bible now completed, we would give our work back into the hands of the Lord; for him to use and to bless and to accomplish his purposes (Isaiah 55:11); for the sake of his church and the gospel, to 'the ends of the earth' (Acts 13:47) — knowing that 'the word of the Lord remains forever' (1 Peter 1:25)," Crossway said.