The Ethiopian is used in a collective sense of “Ethiopians.” Since the skin of an Ethiopian is dark, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has the equivalent of “a black man.” It is also possible to use an expression such as “Can people change the color of their skin?” (Good News Translation). These examples are especially needed where Ethiopians are not known, but they are also good because the text is not referring to people from the modern country of Ethiopia. The word in the Hebrew text referred to quite a wide area of Africa, including other countries as well as modern Ethiopia.

The leopard is first mentioned in 5.6. However, there the fact that it has spots was not in focus, whereas here the spots are the distinguishing feature that is important. If leopards are not known, translators may use a descriptive phrase such as “spotted wild cat” or “wild animal like a tiger [or, lion] with spots.” In some cases translators may use another animal they know which is spotted, but it is better to retain the leopard if at all possible. In translation it may be better to change the difficult question form to a statement: “A black man cannot … and a leopard cannot….”

Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil: Doing evil is as much a part of the Israelites’ nature as is the black skin of Ethiopians and the spots of leopards.

Another way to structure this whole verse is:

• Can someone change the color of their skin, or a leopard get rid of its spots? Of course not. And neither can you change from doing only evil to doing good.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .