Comparison with Revised Standard Version shows how Good News Bible has changed the order of the clauses. The structure of the sentence in Greek is difficult and may well require some restructuring in translation. Other common language translations, however, do not do this in the same way as Good News Bible. For example, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “You will also be saved by it, if you hold it fast as I handed it over to you. Otherwise you would have come to faith in vain!”

The first clause, by which you are saved, follows on naturally from verse 1. Saved in this context probably means “being saved,” hence “you will be saved.” It is quite common in New Testament Greek for the present tense to refer by anticipation to future events. Revised English Bible has “which is now bringing you salvation.”

The main difficulties arise in the rest of the verse. New English Bible takes the following clause to be a direct question, “Do you still hold fast the Gospel as I preached it to you?” and then continues, “If not, your conversion was in vain.” However, most translations and editions agree with the UBS Greek text in taking the second clause as an implied question, as for example in Barclay “if you keep a tight grip of it, in the form in which I preached it to you.” In vain in the context of this chapter means that the hoped-for consequences of faith will never happen, making faith useless.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .