A careless reading of this verse as it appears in Revised Standard Version could connect the verbal phrase to make you leave the way to the words immediately before it, the LORD your God … redeemed you out of the house of bondage. Actually it goes with the description of the person who has taught rebellion against the LORD your God. Good News Translation attempts to solve this problem by making the clause to make you leave the way part of a new sentence. However, another possibility is to place the clause who brought you out of the land … at the beginning of the verse, as follows:

• … be faithful to him. He rescued you from working like slaves in Egypt. So you must put to death any prophet or interpreter of dreams who tells you to rebel against the LORD.

Shall be put to death: such a person is a traitor and must be executed at once. In some languages the passive voice must be transformed to the active; for example, “But you must execute [or, kill] such a prophet or….”

He has taught rebellion against the LORD your God: in the religious realm this is called apostasy; in the political realm it is rebellion or sedition. Here taught rebellion means “urged you to rebel”; Revised English Bible has “preached rebellion”; or we may say “tells you to disobey the LORD.”

Who brought you out of the land of Egypt: see 5.6; 6.12.

Redeemed you out of the house of bondage: see 7.8.

To make you leave the way: the life of obedience to God is often pictured as a journey, a path a person must walk. In a number of languages this figurative language may be retained; for example, “to cause you to stop walking on the path on which the LORD your God commanded you to walk.”

You shall purge the evil: see 17.7, 12. The would-be leader of a rebellion against Yahweh is seen as an impurity or an uncleanness that must be gotten rid of in order to keep the people healthy and clean. Alternative translation models for this final sentence are “You shall put this person to death in order to get rid of this evil thing from among you”; or in languages where it will be difficult to talk about evil apart from the person who does it, “That person is evil, so you must put him to death.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .