Paragraph 17:13–15

17:13a

the Jews from Thessalonica: This phrase refers to the Jews who had opposed Paul in Thessalonica. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate that all Jews came. If that is true in your language, explain the correct meaning in your translation. For example:

⌊some of⌋ the Jews ⌊who had opposed Paul⌋ in Thessalonica

17:13b

was also proclaiming: This phrase refers to publicly announcing something. Paul announced the good news about Jesus as the Christ. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

was preaching (New International Version)
-or-
was…spreading (God’s Word)
-or-
was telling people

See how you translated this word in 8:4 or 15:35.

the word of God: This refers to the message from God about Jesus. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly refer to something other than the gospel about Jesus. If that is true in your language, explain the correct meaning in your translation. For example:

God’s message (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
the message from God ⌊about Jesus⌋

17:13c

to incite and agitate the crowds: The purpose of this action was to get the crowds angry with Paul and the believers. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate only that the crowds were angry in general. If that is true in your language, indicate the purpose clearly. For example:

agitating the crowds and stirring them up ⌊against Paul⌋

to incite and agitate the crowds: The words incite and agitate refer to causing the crowd to become angry. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

make trouble (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
they went there to upset…the people (God’s Word)
-or-
inciting…the crowds (NET Bible)

agitate the crowds: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as agitate refers literally to stirring or disturbing something. Here it refers to causing the crowd to be troubled. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

rouse the rabble (Revised English Bible)
-or-
confuse the people (God’s Word)

General Comment on 17:13c

The two verbs “incite” and “agitate” are similar in meaning. Together they emphasize the action. In some languages it is difficult to find two verbs of similar meaning like these two verbs in English. If that is true in your language, emphasize the action in another way. For example:

they went there too and caused the crowd to become very upset/angry

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.