Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 6:25

It will be righteousness for us: the noun righteousness here can be understood in two different ways (note the alternative translation given in Good News Translation):
(1) The people’s merit, God’s approval of them. So Good News Translation has “God will be pleased with us,” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “it will be to our merit before the LORD our God,” Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje “our lives will be pleasing to him,” and New Revised Standard Version “we will be in the right.”
(2) The people’s conduct. New Jerusalem Bible has “For us, right living will mean this,” Bible en français courant “our conduct will be according to God’s will,” and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “We will be righteous if we…” (with a footnote indicating that this is the kind of conduct that leads God to approve the person and receive that person as his friend).

It is hard to decide which of these is the better rendering; a translator should feel free to choose either one, and perhaps include an alternative rendering in a footnote.

All this commandment: see 5.31.

For the rest of the verse, see 6.1.

Alternative models illustrating interpretation (2) are as follows:

• We will live [or, walk] our lives according to God’s will, if we faithfully obey everything that he has commanded us.

• If we faithfully obey everything that God has commanded us, we will be living our lives as he wants us to.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

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