Y’all Version Bible: Available in Print, App, and Shirts!

After over 10 years of development, I’m excited to announce that a complete Y’all Version Bible (YALL) in alpha form is now available in several formats:

• Web: where you can switch to “you guys” or “yinz” and search visually
• App: YouVersion’s Bible App for plans, references, and comparisons
• Print: the whole Bible in black and white or the OT and NT which have colored titles and y’alls
• Swag: including shirts, mugs, and planners to show your love for the second person plural

Print Versions

After many request, Y’all Version is now available in print version through Amazon!

The whole Bible is 800 pages and black and white, while the separate OT and NT versions are smaller and have color text headings with “y’all” highlighted in green.

One day, I’d like to be able to offer a traditional leather bound version with thin Bible paper, but these are a nice start.

Merch for All Y’all

My kids encouraged me to create some shirts, hats, and other items that you can share with friends and family. These are now available at yallversion.etsy.com. Let me know if you have an idea for something that might help spread the word!

What is Y’all Version?

The short story is that Y’all Version is a Bible translation with the distinct feature of using “y’all” when the Hebrew or Greek has a plural second person pronoun or verb. In contrast, modern English translations use “you” for both singular and plural forms, which I think enables more individualistic readings.

For I know the plans I have for y’all,” declares YHWH, “plans for prosperity not disaster, to give y’all hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11 (YALL)

Don’t y’all know that y’all are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in y’all?

1 Corinthians 3:16 (YALL)

In addition, Y’all Version renders the divine name as “YHWH” rather than “the LORD.”

God also said to Moses, “You are to tell the children of Israel this, ‘YHWH, the God of y’all’s ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to y’all.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.

Exodus 3:15 (YALL)

Put together, these key features help readers clearly see God and God’s people, or YHWH and y’all.

Y’all Version Features

Here is some additional details of the key features of YALL is adapted from yallversion.com. The About Page and the printed versions of the text have more detail, including a breakdown on the number of second person plurals in each book of the Bible.

1. The Name of God (YHWH)

YALL renders the divine name of God as YHWH, representing the four consonants of the Hebrew word (יהוה). In addition, YALL renders pronouns for God with small caps (Hᴇ, ʜᴇ, ʜɪᴍ, ʜɪꜱ) and pronouns for Jesus with masculine pronouns (he, him, his). The goal is to expose readers to God’s name, while also preserving the reverence in the LORD tradition, but instead of using small caps for the divine name, small caps are used on divine pronouns to indicate the creator/creature distinction.

2. The People of God (y’all)

YALL uses “you” and “y’all” to represent the distinction between singular and plural forms in Hebrew and Greek. Most languages preserve this clarity, but modern English does not indicate when a passage addresses an individual or a community, which allows for an individualistic reading of scripture. Y’all used to be limited to the Southern US, but has since grown to be used throughout the world (The Atlantic, BBC, How Stuff Works, etc.).

3. The Word of God

Although one might associate “y’all” with more informal speech, making the distinction between “you” and “y’all” is a very literal way of translating Greek and Hebrew. Because of this, I tended to stick with that approach throughout the text. In other words, YALL attempts to balance readable English word order with a word-for-word approach that works to highlight patterns in the underlying vocabulary as much as possible. For example, Hebrew infinitive absolutes are rendered “literally” as “die-die” rather than “surely die” (Gen 2:17). In Greek, some words are translated in an alternative way than most popular versions: kalos (καλός) as “beautiful” or “excellent” rather simply “good,” adelphoi (ἀδελφοὶ) as “siblings” instead of “brethren” or “brothers and sisters,” anthropos (ἄνθρωπος) as “human” when not referring to a specific male person, and ethnos (ἔθνος) as “ethnic group” rather than alternating between “Gentile” and “nation.”

How Did Y’all Version Come About?

The longer story goes something like this

• 2002 – When I took Greek in seminary, I learned that the original languages of the Bible have distinct forms for singular and plural second person pronouns and verbs.
• 2013 – I created something called the “Texas Bible Plugin” for Google Chrome, which would convert “you” to “y’all” in verses with a second person plural when you visited biblegateway.com and bible.com. It also had an option to convert the divine name from “the LORD” to “Yahweh.” KERA, Dallas’s NPR affiliate, did a little story on the project.
• 2014 – CNN also wanted to write about the Texas Bible, but the reporter I spoke to thought the browser plugin was too complicated to explain to their audience. This made me want to shift to putting it on a separate website and, at the same time, rename it something broader than “Texas.” So I bought the domain name yallversion.com as a play on YouVersion and set it up as a website with the core software from https://biblewebapp.com/ (which I developed in part for underground distribution in closed countries).
• 2021 – Over the years, people have asked about a printed version of Y’all Version, but I couldn’t do this since I didn’t have the copyright to the underlying translations that my site was altering. So sometime around the pandemic, I decided to start working on a distinct translation that I could distribute and print. I started with the ASV (1901 now in the public domain), made a series of global changes (e.g., runneth to runs), then incorporated many of the updates from the WEB, then worked verse by verse through the Hebrew and Greek, adding headings (over 2000!), reworking vocabulary and syntax, updating imperatives, and so on.
• 2024 – After about four years of working on the text, the text was ready for an initial release in November 2024. Thankfully, the Digital Bible Library (DBL) accepted YALL an an official version, which led the way to its inclusion in YouVersion in December 2024, around the same time I was able to get a print version into Amazon.

I really hope this project is a helpful resource for Christians and enables them to read the Bible in a way that connects them with God (YHWH) as well as their community of faith (y’all).