And you shall teach them uses a word that means to warn, to “enlighten” (New American Bible), or to “enjoin” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). One may also say “You must help them to know.” The statutes and the decisions uses the same words as verse 16, but here the idea that they are “God’s commands” (Good News Translation) is only implied. And make them know the way in which they must walk is literally “and you will cause them to know the way they will walk in it.” This is an expression that means “how they should behave” (Translator’s Old Testament), or “how they should live” (Good News Translation). In many languages the metaphor of “walking” will be appropriate; for example, “You must explain to them how they should walk their lives” (THCL). And what they must do is literally “and the work that they will make,” or “the doing that they will do.” New Revised Standard Version has “the things they are to do.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .