Manuscript variant · documented
What the source reads — 'Let us go out to the field' — Cain's words to Abel, present in the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Vulgate and the Peshitta
What this version reads — 'And Cain said to Abel his brother' — then the sentence breaks off; the Masoretic names a speech but gives no words
The Hebrew has Cain 'say' to Abel, then jumps straight to the field and the murder — the quoted speech is missing, leaving a grammatical gap ('said', with nothing said). Every other main witness supplies the line 'Let us go out to the field'. A clause lost from the Masoretic, or added by everyone else — the manuscripts part here.
Read this chapter side by side — Genesis 4:8 →