For these two verses, compare the similar wording of Bar 1.20-21 (22).

The connector Yet, which begins verse 8, shows a contrastive relationship between these two verses. Good News Translation maintains this relationship with “Even though” opening verse 7. However, verse 7 in Good News Translation lacks any obvious reference back to Bar 1.20. The following model was suggested there: “And now look at us! These disasters that we are suffering are the result of the terrible things that God had told his servant Moses to threaten us with long ago, at the time when the Lord led our ancestors out of Egypt, so that he might give us a rich, fertile land.” If translators were to follow that model in chapter 1, they could make reference back to it at this point by saying “Even though the Lord brought on us the disasters that he threatened….”

Good News Translation interprets verse 8 to mean that the people did not pray to God that they would abandon their evil thoughts. The Greek can be understood this way (so also New English Bible), but there is another possibility that is rather more likely, namely, that the people did not try to gain the Lord’s favor by abandoning those evil thoughts. (The Greek text does not mention prayer, only “seeking the face of the Lord,” that is, asking for his favor.) If we follow the more likely meaning here, an alternative model for verses 7-8 is:

• Even though the Lord brought on us the disasters that he threatened, we still did not try to win back his favor by turning from our own evil thoughts.

The last phrase, “by turning from our own evil thoughts,” refers back to the text of Good News Translation at 1.21 (22).

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.