The instructions are clear, the vocabulary is simple.

A stick: the Hebrew word is used in this sense only here; elsewhere it means a pin or a tentpeg. For this kind of task a stick would be used. New International Version “something to dig with” is satisfactory.

Your weapons: or, more generally, “your equipment” (Good News Translation, New International Version, Revised English Bible); New Revised Standard Version has “your utensils.” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “gear” is the proper military term in English.

You sit down … dig a hole … turn back and cover up your excrement: in the nature of the case, first the man would dig a hole and then squat over it and relieve himself, after which he would cover up the excrement.

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 .