For the sake of emphasis the Good News Translation has rearranged this sentence and has placed first You son of the Devil!

Everything that is good or “all that is right” (An American Translation*) correctly translates the meaning of the literal expression “of all righteousness” since “righteousness” is used in the present context in the general sense of “what is good or right.” “You enemy of all true religion” (Jerusalem Bible) perhaps limits the reference too much.

Though in most languages an expression such as son of the Devil is quite meaningful, there are some instances in which this could be wrongly interpreted, that is, as a declaration that he was literally the offspring of the Devil. The emphasis, of course, in this Semitic idiom is to emphasize the extent to which a person is like the individual, or quality, which follows the phrase son of. Accordingly, in this situation, one can employ an expression such as “you are like the Devil himself” or “you are just like the Devil.”

In all languages one may be an enemy of a person but not necessarily “an enemy of what is good.” One can always find some way to express this relationship, for example, “you are opposed to everything that is good” or “you are contrary to all that is good.”

Full of all kinds of evil tricks translates two adjectives, the first of which means “deceit” or “cunning.” The second, usually rendered something like “villainy” or “wickedness,” originally meant “ease in doing (something),” but it later developed the bad sense of “laziness” and “wickedness.” In the papyri it is used especially in connection with theft. Needless to say, the translators differ widely in the way in which they express these terms.

You always keep trying to turn the Lord’s truths into lies in the Greek is a question which demands the answer “Yes.” To turn … into lies is literally “to make crooked.” But since it is impossible to turn the Lord’s truths (literally “these straight ways of the Lord”) into lies, the Good News Translation has taken the verb in the sense of the trying to turn … into lies. There are several ways in which the expression turn the Lord’s truths into lies can be understood and translated. It may, for example, be equivalent to “you are saying that the truth about the Lord is a lie,” “you are lying about the truth concerning the Lord,” or “you are changing the truth about the Lord so that it becomes a lie.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .