Lest you make a covenant … land is identical with verse 12. And when they play the harlot is just one word in the Hebrew that means, literally, “and they will commit adultery” or “engage in prostitution.” After their gods uses ʾelohim for gods. The expression is often used figuratively to describe the Israelites’ unfaithfulness to Yahweh when they worshiped other gods. The intended meaning here may suggest the actual sexual immorality practiced by the pagan religions as part of their worship, or it may simply be an Israelite way of describing all pagan worship. Good News Translation abandons the figure entirely, “when they worship their pagan gods,” but New Revised Standard Version has “when they prostitute themselves to their gods.” The translation, however, should not suggest that these inhabitants of the land actually engaged in sexual intercourse with their gods. Translators may use the figure of “prostitution” if it will be natural in the receptor language. Otherwise it will be better to follow the idea of “worshiping other gods.”

And sacrifice to their gods is literally “and they will sacrifice to their ʾelohim.” The idea of when, both here and in the preceding clause, is implied by the main clause, you eat of his sacrifice, at the end of the verse. And one invites you is literally “and he calls to you [singular].” Revised Standard Version renders this as the third part of a long temporal clause introduced by when. New Revised Standard Version has changed this to the main clause, “someone among them will invite you.” Good News Translation adds the implied meaning, “they will invite you to join them.”

You eat of his sacrifice, literally “and you will eat from his sacrifice,” is the main clause in Revised Standard Version. This is the danger referred to by the word lest at the beginning of the verse. In some translations this clause is interpreted as a prediction of what will definitely happen (similarly New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). But the force of the word lest, which probably continues even through verse 16, makes this only a possibility. So Good News Translation has “you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.” And New American Bible has “one of them may invite you and you may partake of their sacrifices.” (For a similar New Testament situation, see 1Corinthians 8.) Good News Translation‘s model will be a good one for many translators.

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 .