This verse is one sentence in Hebrew, but in some languages more than one sentence may be needed. Translators should use a style that is appropriate and natural in their language.

They sacrificed to demons: “to sacrifice” means to offer sacrifices, usually of animals. Only here and in Psa 106.37 does this noun occur. Demons refers to the “foreign gods,” who were thought of as representing demons. Some translators may wish to keep the word demons (“dirty or evil spirits”) and translate similarly to Contemporary English Version:

• You offered sacrifices
to demons, those useless gods

Which were no gods: that is, they were not really divine, but demonic; so Good News Translation says “gods that are not real.” But the Hebrew text may be translated “not to God” (New Revised Standard Version), and this seems preferable. See 1 Cor 10.20. So “rather than offering them [the sacrifices or animals] to God” will be a good model.

Gods they had never known: see 9.24.

New gods that had come in of late: that is, gods they got to know after they had settled in Canaan. This does not mean that those gods had arrived recently in Canaan, but that they had recently become known to the Israelites. So we may say “gods they [or, you] had just come to know.”

Whom your fathers had never dreaded: the verb is more or less parallel with never known of two lines above. It is used of religious awe, reverence, or respect. As elsewhere, fathers means ancestors.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• They [or, You] offered sacrifices to foreign gods
rather than offering them to God.
These were gods that they [or, you] had just come to know,
gods that your ancestors had never worshiped.

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 .