Do not be like your fathers and your brethren: The word fathers is used twice in this verse, as well as in the following verse, and in each case its meaning is not literal, but refers to “ancestors” (Good News Translation). The brethren of the people of Israel to whom this invitation was addressed were other Israelites. While New International Version retains the male terminology with “brothers,” the meaning here is better expressed as “kindred” (New Revised Standard Version) or “relatives” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).
Who were faithless to the LORD God of their fathers: For the Hebrew verb rendered were faithless, see the comments on 1 Chr 10.13, where it is translated “was unfaithful.”
So that he made them a desolation means God severely disciplined the ancestors of the addressees. The Hebrew noun rendered desolation can refer to destruction following judgment or to the shock felt by people at the sight of a horrible thing (see the comments on 2 Chr 29.8, where it is translated “astonishment”). New Jerusalem Bible follows the first sense by rendering this clause as “he brought them to ruin.” Translations that express the second sense are “He turned them into a horror” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “he abandoned them for men to shudder at” (Moffatt), and “he made them an object of horror” (New International Version).
As you see: These words indicate that it should be evident to all hearing the invitation that their ancestors were punished for their wrongdoing. The presence of the second person plural pronoun for you in the Hebrew text is taken by some to mean that emphasis is placed on the pronoun; for example, Revised English Bible and New American Bible say “you yourselves.” But more likely the pronoun is present in the Hebrew text to give a subject to the Hebrew participle rendered see, which otherwise has no explicit subject. Most versions use the present tense of the verb “to see.” However, Revised English Bible uses the past tense verb “saw.” But either way the meaning is basically the same since the punishment had already occurred. Instead of using the verb see, it will be more natural in some languages to say “know very well.” New Century Version renders this clause as a separate sentence, saying “You know this is true.”
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .