The children of your elect sister: this phrase refers to the members of a sister congregation, that is, the congregation from which John is writing (compare 2 John 1.1). Here again it will be safer to translate the text literally and give the explanation in a footnote.

Your elect sister may have to be restructured; for example, ‘your sister, the elect one,’ or ‘the elect lady, (who is) your sister.’ For elect see comments on 2 John 1.1; for problems when rendering “sister” compare comments on its masculine counterpart, “brother,” in 2.9.

Greet you: the Greek uses here its common verb for “to greet,” not the compound expression occurring in verses 10-11. In the receptor language, however, renderings of the two terms usually coincide.

Some receptor languages possess a specific formula of greeting to be used in letter writing; for example, ‘their inner-being makes mention of you.’ Compare also the English expressions “wish to be remembered to you” and “send you their greetings,” used here by Goodspeed and Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The Second Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .