A look inside the Open Translation
The Open Translation is a Dutch-language, public-domain revision of the Statenvertaling. To give an impression of what the translation looks like in practice, we have prepared a print-style preview containing three well-known passages with their margin notes:
- Genesis 1 — The creation account
- John 3 — Jesus and Nicodemus, “you must be born again”
- Romans 8 — Life in the Spirit, no condemnation in Christ
Note: the preview is in Dutch, because the Open Translation itself is a Dutch translation. The text shows how words of God are rendered (red, italic, with quotation marks), how the divine Name JAHWEH is used, and how the margin notes appear alongside the text.
What you will see in the example
Formatting of God's speech
Words spoken by God are displayed in red italic, between quotation marks. For example, in Genesis 1:3 you will see:
Genesis 1:3 And God said: “Let there be light!” And there was light.
The divine Name JAHWEH
Where the Statenvertaling renders the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) as “HEERE”, the Open Translation uses JAHWEH. This makes the divine Name visible to the reader, in line with what stands in the Hebrew text.
Margin notes
The original margin notes of the Statenvertaling have been carried over and translated into contemporary Dutch. Numbered markers in the text refer to explanations, cross-references, and source-text comments at the foot of the page. Hebrew and Greek words are given in their original script with transliteration.
Print-style layout
The example is laid out as a booklet (A5 spread). It gives an impression of how the Open Translation would appear in a printed Bible. Because the translation is CC0 (public domain), anyone is free to print and distribute it without permission or cost.
Reading the complete Open Translation
The full reading edition of the Open Translation — all 83 books, 37,314 verses — is available on the Dutch site:
For an English-language Bible in the public domain, we recommend the World English Bible (WEB), which all Scripture quotations on this English site are drawn from.