You are righteous, O Lord, and all your deeds are just: Lord (Greek kurios) is the equivalent of the Hebrew ʾadonai meaning “One who rules” or “Master” (see also 3.14).

For the translation of the first two lines, see the discussion on translating poetry above in the introduction to this section. In some languages, two balanced lines carrying almost the same information will be good style. In other languages, however, it will be better to combine the two lines; for example, “Lord, everything you do is good [or, righteous].” We may also show the logical relationship between the two lines as follows: “Lord, you are righteous, so you do only good things.”

All your ways are mercy and truth: Describing your ways (or, “everything you do”) by the construction using the nouns mercy and truth may be difficult to translate in a number of languages. Good News Translation “You are merciful in all you do, and faithful in all your ways” is one possible model. Another possibility is to combine the two clauses as follows: “You are merciful and faithful [or, honest] in all your ways.” However, in some languages it will be necessary to show who is the object of God’s mercy; for example, “Your deeds show that you are always merciful and faithful towards us.” It is difficult to understand the Good News Translation textual note on the second line, for it is hard to see why Good News Translation has omitted “and just,” which is clearly part of our text. The words “and just” should really be supplied in Good News Translation either after “merciful” in line 2 or after “faithful” in line 3.

You judge the world: We may express this as “You are the judge of this world” (Good News Translation) or “You are the one who judges the people of this world.” The textual note at the end of the verse in both Good News Translation and New Revised Standard Version refers to what is in the other Greek text and the Old Latin. We can ignore this if we are translating the text followed in this Handbook.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Tobit. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.