In this section Moses is still the speaker.

See, I have set before you this day means “Today I am giving you the choice between,” or “Today I am letting you choose between.”

Life and good, death and evil: notice that Today’s English Version has rearranged the four into two contrasting pairs, “good and evil … life and death.”

Life and good: this is the option for life, a long existence as a people in the Promised Land (verse 18). Good here is prosperity, success, wealth; New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible have “prosperity,” BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum “happiness,” Contemporary English Version “success.” Its opposite, evil, is “disaster” (Contemporary English Version, New Jerusalem Bible), “adversity” (New Revised Standard Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “destruction” (New International Version). For the two options Bible en français courant has “success and failure.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .