An evil and adulterous generation is translated in the form of an exclamation by Good News Translation: “How evil and godless are the people of this day!” But the problem is that for English speakers “How…” is normally heard to introduce a question. It will be more natural to translate “You people are evil and godless!” or “Only evil and godless people (like you) would look for a sign.”

Adulterous is here used of unfaithfulness to God, thus the reason for “godless” of Good News Translation and New English Bible; New American Bible has “unfaithful,” and Barclay “apostate.” Other ways to render it include “not faithful to God” and “disobedient to God.” A literal translation may make readers think of people who were guilty of physical adultery.

An evil … generation means “evil people” or “people who are doing evil (things).” Generation refers to the people of a certain era. Here Jesus obviously is referring to “the people of this time” or “people today.” Hence common translations are “the evil people of today who are unfaithful to God” or “these evil and disobedient people of today.”

Generation seeks for a sign is altered to a second-person reference by Good News Translation and translated “You ask me for a miracle.” It may be more accurate to translate “You ask God to show you a special miracle.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch retains the third-person reference and translates “They don’t want to know anything about God, but they want to see a miracle.”

Some translators understand Jesus’ words to contain a certain amount of irony or even bitterness, as in “So, the evil and unfaithful want a sign from God, do they?” or “These evil and unfaithful people of our day think God should give them a sign.” Another rendering is “You want some visible action of God? You, who are evil and unfaithful to God?”

Notice that in some of these examples it is explicit that the real source of the sign is God. The use of the passive shall be given suggests that God is the intended agent, and so supports the interpretation proposed for “seeks a sign.” One may then translate “The only miracle God will give you is….”

The sign of the prophet Jonah is ambiguous. The most natural conclusion is that the sign receives its interpretation from the following verse, which speaks of what happened to Jonah. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch makes this connection explicit: “The only proof they will receive is that which corresponds to what the prophet Jonah experienced.” The sign of the prophet Jonah does not refer to a miracle Jonah performed but to the sign God gave him. Thus another rendering can be “the only visible action God will do for you is the same one he did for the prophet Jonah.”

For comments on prophet, see 1.22.

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 .