Passage

1 Corinthians 10.4

Book: 1 Corinthians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"2. and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3. and did all eat the same spiritual food;"

"4. and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ."

"5. Howbeit with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." (1 Corinthians 10:2-6, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"2. and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3. and all ate the same spiritual food;"

"4. and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."

"5. However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted." (1 Corinthians 10:2-6, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"2. And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3. And did all eat the same spiritual meat;"

"4. And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. ^{followed: or, went with them}"

"5. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. ^{our: Gr. our figures}" (1 Corinthians 10:2-6, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"2. and all to Moses were baptized in the cloud, and in the sea; 3. and all the same spiritual food did eat,"

"4. and all the same spiritual drink did drink, for they were drinking of a spiritual rock following them, and the rock was the Christ;"

"5. but in the most of them God was not well pleased, for they were strewn in the wilderness, 6. and those things became types of us, for our not passionately desiring evil things, as also these did desire." (1 Corinthians 10:2-6, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Paul of Tarsus, writing from Ephesus
Audience: the church at Corinth, addressing issues of food sacrificed to idols and the wilderness-typology warning against presumption
Location: Ephesus
Time period: c. AD 53-55

Theological reading

1 Cor 10:4 is Paul's typological identification of the wilderness Rock (Exod 17:6; Num 20:11) with Christ, anchoring the NT pattern of reading OT events as Christological prefigurement.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.