Deliver up: see verses 17, 19; the verb is discussed in 4.12. Here the brothers are to be delivered up to death, so it can be rendered “will hand over their brothers to the authorities to be killed.”

Instead of Brother … brother, many translations will have “Men (or, Some men) … their brothers,” as Good News Translation has. Other languages will render the sentence “It will happen that men will hand over their own brothers to the authorities to be killed.”

The father his child is problematic for at least two reasons: (1) the inclusion of the definite article the in a context that is unnatural in English and (2) the omission of the understood verb. Moffatt resolves the second of these problems by translating “the father will betray his child”; Good News Translation deals with both difficulties: “and fathers will do the same to their children.” However, in some languages to mention both “fathers” and “children” would be unnecessarily redundant, so that “men … their own children” would be better. Again, there are languages where it will be necessary to say “some men” or “some fathers.”

It may be necessary to repeat the verb “deliver up to death” or use a form such as “will do the same thing.”

Children will rise against parents and have them put to death represents a fairly literal rendering of the Greek text. In place of rise against (Revised Standard Version, Moffatt, Jerusalem Bible), a number of translators prefer “turn against” (Good News Translation, An American Translation, New English Bible, New American Bible, Phillips); Barclay has “attack (and murder).” Elsewhere in the New Testament the verb is used only in Mark 13.12; the root meaning is “rise in rebellion” (see its usage in the Septuagint of Deut 33.11). For this reason, rise against can also be rendered as “rebel against.”

Have them put to death means the children will have the authorities kill the parents, or that they will turn them over to the authorities who will kill them, very much as men will do with their brothers at the beginning of the verse. As with brothers and fathers, “some children … their parents” or “some people … their parents” will be clearer than a translation that can be understood to mean all children.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .