The first half of the illustration (verse 7) recalls Genesis 1.11-12, and the second half (verse 8) echoes Genesis 3.17-18. The translator should not attempt to mark the reference by quotation marks, since only isolated words are quoted (such as grows thorns and weeds and cursed). The meaning of the sentence as a whole is rather different. In Genesis the curse makes the ground infertile; here God curses the ground because it is infertile.
It is impossible to be scientifically certain which species of plants are referred to as thorns and weeds. Weeds are probably some kind of thistle. The point is that, far from being useful (verse 7), they interfere with desirable plants. The translator should feel free to use the names of any plants in his area which meet this condition.
If it grows thorns and weeds must be restructured in some languages as “if thorns and weeds grow in it.”
It is worth nothing may be expressed as “it produces nothing,” “it has no value,” or even “no one wants it.”
Good News Translation and some other translations include a slight contradiction which may cause misunderstanding: the words in danger of being cursed are followed by the more definite and will be destroyed by fire. There is no contradiction in the text. It means either (a) that the land is about to be cursed and then finally burned (will be is implied) or (b) more probably, as Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch puts it, that the land is “under the threat of being cursed by God and finally burned.”
By God is implied.
In danger of being cursed by God may be rendered as “is near to being cursed by God” or “God is likely to curse it.” The final passive expression will be destroyed by fire may be expressed actively as “fire will destroy it.” There may, however, be a difficulty involved in suggesting that fire will destroy soil. In a sense, of course, this is a mixed figure of speech, since the text is in reality speaking about divine judgment of persons.
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .