In the sweat of your face: sweat of your face is an idiom in which face stands for the body. The sense is “by working very hard,” “by sweating and working hard.” In the sweat of your face is more idiomatically expressed in English as “by the sweat of your brow.” Translators should use the expression most natural in their own language.

You shall eat bread: bread is also one item that represents many foods and so means “food” in general. The eating of food is the result or goal that is the end of a process, namely, “raising crops or food.” Good News Translation says “You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything.” In some languages bread is a common substitute for the more general word “food”; for example, Bible en français courant says “You will earn your bread by the sweat of your forehead.” But in some areas of the world bread is seldom if ever eaten, or eaten only on very special occasions. It is often not used in idiomatic language. In such cases the local main food item may be used, as bread is used here in the Hebrew.

Till you return to the ground emphasizes “all the days of your life” in verse 17, and here gives a picture of the man being buried in the earth at death. For out of it you were taken refers to God having formed man from the earth, soil, in 2.7. Some translations make this reference clear; for example, “… until your body goes back again to the ground which I made you from at first.”

You are dust: dust translates the same word used in 2.7. See there for comments. And to dust you shall return refers to the gradual decay of the body in the ground.

Translators should attempt to retain the repetition in the two lines, dust … dust, “earth … earth,” or “dirt … dirt,” if possible. You are dust may have to be expressed as, for example, “You were made from dirt,” “Your body was formed from dirt,” or “I formed you from dirt.” The final clause may also be rendered “and you will become dirt again when you are buried,” “you will be buried, and then you will become dirt,” or “when you are buried in the ground, you will become like the ground again.” In areas where dead bodies are not buried in the ground, it may be necessary to provide a footnote saying, for example, “The ancient Hebrews placed the dead body in a grave dug in the ground.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .