The Good News Translation understands the evil within Simon in the sense of an evil plan, though most translators simply render the word by “wickedness.” The expression “the intent of your heart” is rendered by the Good News Translation as for thinking such a thing as this, since in Jewish thought the heart was the seat of one’s thoughts.

Forgive you for thinking may be rendered as “forgive you because you have thought.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .