Their tongues are smoothed by the craftsman …: The pronoun Their refers to the idols, and this must be made clear, as in Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version. For the author and original audience, the tongues of the idols were important. Some images were thought of as oracles and were fashioned with open mouths—but such subtlety would be completely lost on a modern audience.

Good News Translation renders the Greek word for smoothed as “carved,” which is not actually wrong, but the reference is probably to the wood and the way it was smoothed or polished (New Jerusalem Bible “polished smooth”). The word craftsman is a good general term, which is what the Greek term here is. Although it often refers to woodworkers (Moore translates “carpenter”), it can be used of any kind of artisan. The translation of terms for both the person and the action will depend on what kind of idol we think of. Here, since we are told the idols are overlaid with gold and silver, we are justified in thinking of them as first carved from wood and then covered with gold and silver.

The reordering of the first two clauses in this verse in Good News Translation is effective and less jarring than beginning with Their tongues and then describing the manufacture of the idols themselves.

They are false and cannot speak: The pronoun they refers to the idols, not their tongues. They are real idols, of course, but “they are not real gods” (Good News Translation). Good News Translation restates this simply and well, as does Contemporary English Version with “Idols are not really gods—they can’t even talk!” Compare Psa 115.4-5; 135.15-16.

In languages that do not have the passive voice, we may translate this verse as follows:

• Craftsmen plate their idols with silver and gold, and woodworkers carve the idols’ tongues out of wood. But these idols are not really gods—they can’t even talk.

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.