//Briefly summarized, the committee made text changes to 36 Scripture passages involving 42 verses, resulting in a total of 68 word changes. Given that there are nearly 757,400 words in the ESV, this represents a change of about one word per 11,000 words in the ESV text. In addition to the above text changes, a limited number of changes were made to 57 footnotes, and a few additional changes were also made to punctuation in 14 verses.//
ESV Text Edition: 2025
Complete List of Changes from 2016
Two Notable Changes
One notable revision in this update involves Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. The committee changed the ESV 2016 translation of the Hebrew preposition 'el from “contrary to” back to the original ESV 2001 translation “for” —which provides a more natural translation in continuity with the historic stream of formal equivalent English Bible translations (for example, the RSV, NASB, and NKJV), and which preserves the range of interpretive options in the Hebrew. The interpretive options can now be seen in the alternative renderings provided in the footnotes: “Or to, or toward, or against.” The conjunction “but” has been changed to “and” in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7 so as not to impose a contrast that is not explicit in the Hebrew text. As general editor for the ESV Bible, J. I. Packer (1926–2020) often reminded the committee, “We respect readers when we pass along to them the job of interpretive work, not going beyond what the linguistic details require and not foreclosing the interpretive options.”
Another notable update appears in John 1:18. “The only God” has been updated to “God the only Son,” with “God” corresponding to theos and “only Son” to monogenēs (as in John 1:14). This translation incorporates the concept of descent (which is an implication of monogenēs in context) and maintains concordance with the other occurrences of monogenēs in the New Testament. The idea of sonship is evoked by monogenēs in the context of “Father” in John 1:18 and 1:14. The rendering “only son” for monogenēs in several ancient translations of the New Testament for Luke 7:12, 8:42, and Hebrews 11:17 indicates the propriety of a similar rendering in the verses referring to the Son of God. The footnote for John 1:18 has also been revised to reflect more clearly the manuscript variations, including alternative renderings such as “the only God who” and “the only Son,” allowing readers to engage with the full textual tradition.
