When fire breaks out in a temple of wooden gods overlaid with gold or silver …: The restructuring in Good News Translation is good here since it allows the reader to grasp more easily the situation of a fire in a temple. The only point missed, and a small one, is that the Greek doesn’t actually describe the gods as “made of wood and covered with silver and gold” as in verse 39. Here they are “wooden or covered with gold or silver.” If we want to press this point, Good News Translation could be reworded to say “… while the gods are left to burn like wooden beams, whether they are made just of wood or whether they are covered with silver or gold.” The Good News Translation translation, however, has only one sentence. In some languages it will be necessary to use two sentences; for example:

• If a temple catches on fire, the priests run away to save themselves. But the idols burn like wooden beams whether they are made just of wood or covered with gold or silver.

The Revised Standard Version footnote here indicates that the gods is literally “they” in Greek. Note that the reference to the gods being burnt in two like beams is awkward, even in Greek. The point is simply that the wooden images are destroyed by fire.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.