I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being: The mother urges her son to consider the created world, and think about who is responsible for bringing all of it into being. Good News Bible‘s introductory connector “So” does not fit in this context. The mother is not asking her son to look at creation because she raised him. We suggest following Revised Standard Version with no connector. My child was a natural way for a Jewish mother of that period to address her son. Translators should use whatever form of address is most natural in this context. It should be loving, but not cute. The heaven refers to “the sky” (Good News Bible). See everything that is in them obviously cannot be taken literally; that is why Good News Bible says “Consider everything you see there.” As the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, God did not make them out of things that existed can be rendered “God made them out of things that did not exist.” Scholars and theologians have long argued over the subtle difference in meaning between these two renderings, but it is hard to believe that the author would object to Good News Bible‘s translation “God made it all from nothing.”

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• Please, son. Look at the sky. Look at the earth. God made everything you see out of nothing. You can be sure of that. He also made us human beings the same way.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.