And they will know that I am the Lord their God: This clause can be connected very easily and smoothly with the previous clause, and several translations have done so. It actually seems to fit better with the previous clause than with what follows. Good News Translation can be reworded this way: “ … you will come to your senses and realize that I am the Lord your God. Then I will give….” Know here has the sense of “realize, acknowledge.” The people already know that the Lord is their God, but in exile they will come to appreciate just what that means.

I will give them a heart that obeys and ears that hear: This is literally “I will give them a heart and hearing ears.” In Greek something has most likely dropped out in connection with the word for heart, so the reader needs some kind of help. Since the heart was seen as the organ of thought and understanding, what is meant here is that God will give the people a new understanding of things (“a heart”) and a new readiness to obey (“hearing ears”). This may be rendered “I will make you understand more clearly and be more ready [or, eager] to obey.” It is certainly not necessary to maintain the imagery of the heart and ears if this is unnatural style in the translator’s language. Good News Translation “a desire to know” is hard to account for. “A mind with which to understand” in Good News Translation is also not satisfactory, because the people already have a mind with which to understand—they just don’t use it. The idea of obedience included in the imagery of hearing seems absent from Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.