1:31
They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless: The Greek words are literally “not-understanding, not-keeping-their-word, not-having-affection, not-having-mercy.” If possible, use words that show the meaning of “not” or “without” each time here. For example:
no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy (New International Version (2011))
-or-
unthinking, unfaithful to their word/promises, unaffectionate, unmerciful
senseless: The Greek word here refers to not being able to understand things well. It is the same word as the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as “foolish” in 1:21. See how you translated this word in 1:21.
faithless: Here this word refers to making promises but not doing as promised. Here are other ways to translate this word:
untrustworthy (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
they do not keep their promises (Good News Translation)
-or-
break their promises (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Concerning what they say they will do, they do not do (it)
heartless:
The Greek word here refers to not having good feelings toward others or not caring for others. Here are other ways to translate this word:
without natural affection (King James Version)
-or-
hardhearted (BDAG)
merciless: This word means “without pity or mercy.” These people show no mercy to others. Here are other ways to translate this word:
no mercy (New International Version (2011))
-or-
no…pity for others (Good News Translation)
© 2020 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.
