Text:

Instead of tērēsēte ‘you may keep’ of the majority of modern editions of the Greek text, Lagrange, Taylor and Kilpatrick have stēsēte ‘you may establish.’

Exegesis:

kalōs (cf. v. 6) ‘how well!’: ironical. Arndt & Gingrich suggest ‘Are you doing the right thing in rejecting…?’

atheteite (cf. 6.26) ‘you are rejecting,’ ‘you set aside.’

tērēsēte (only here in Mark) ‘that you may keep,’ ‘observe,’ ‘fulfil.’

The reading preferred by Kilpatrick and others, stēsēte means ‘establish,’ ‘make firm,’ ‘set’; Lagrange pour établir.

Translation:

The irony of this statement should be made quite clear. A mark of punctuation is often not enough. Note what is done in Tabasco Chontal by beginning the verse as ‘You think you have done well in rejecting….’ Cf. also Toraja-Sa’dan ‘Your cleverness is without equal, in putting God’s commandment out of action.’

Rejecting may be variously rendered, e.g. ‘you say it is of no value to you’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave), ‘you have changed’ (Central Mazahua), ‘you have thrown away’ (Kekchi), ‘pretty you caused it to be lost’ (Copainalá Zoque), in which the word ‘pretty’ immediately marks the phrase as ironical.

The commandment of God in contrast with your tradition may be rendered as ‘what God has ordered … what your fathers have said.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .