For other reminders of Christian love, see 10.24, 32-34. It is interesting to compare Good News Translation with Revised Standard Version‘s more literal translation. Good News Bible is much longer than RSV, but much closer to the meaning of the text. It uses a verb instead of the noun “brotherly love,” since action by the readers is involved. The tense of the Greek verb for “remain” (Revised Standard Version “continue”) shows that continuous action is called for, hence keep on loving.

As Christian brothers: the traditional translation “brotherly love” (Revised Standard Version) does not show what was new and special about relationships within the first Christian communities. At that time it was rare for the word “brother” to be used in speaking of those who were not members of the same family, or at least of the same ethnic group. In the Old Testament, “brother” in its widest sense meant “fellow-Israelite” (Lev 19.17-18; Acts 13.26). Christians thought of themselves as members of the same family, whether or not they were physically related. So “brotherly love” is not love which is merely like the love of brothers (Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente), but the love of those who were truly, though not physically, related in the Christian “brotherhood” (1 Peter 2.17; 5.9). In modern English, “brother” is used so loosely in a weak figurative sense that some translations even avoid the word completely; Barclay “Christians must never stop loving their fellow-Christians.” As Christian brothers may be misinterpreted to mean “as though they were Christian brothers.” The phrase may need to be made more specific in the form of a clause; for example, “as Christian brothers should love one another.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .