With the beginning of a new section, Moses should be reintroduced as the speaker.

As a comparison with Revised Standard Version shows, the Good News Translation has given a summary of the two verses without losing any essential information. But most translations will prefer to follow the wordier form of the Hebrew.

Your bag: where the weights were kept. In buying, the dishonest merchant would put a heavier weight in one of the plates of the scales, so as to get more produce on the other plate; in selling, he would use a lighter weight, thereby decreasing the amount of produce the buyer was getting. Where the Hebrew system of weights and balances is unknown, translators should attempt to adapt the translation to the system used in their culture.

Your house: this can be translated simply “in your possession” (see Good News Translation). Again, a dishonest person would use two different measures (baskets or some other containers for measuring volume), one larger than the other, for his own benefit.

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 .