However, not to give offense to them is represented much more clearly in Good News Translation: “But we don’t want to offend these people.” Another rendering is “But we don’t want these people to be upset with us (or, because of us).” One may need to identify them (Good News Translation “these people”) as “these men who have come to collect the taxes,” “these people who are here with us,” or “these people who are not my disciples.”

Go to the sea and cast a hook is translated “go and cast a line in the lake” by New English Bible. New International Version has “go to the lake and throw out your line.” The Greek noun does have sea as its first meaning, but the body of water referred to here is Lake Galilee. To translate sea would imply for many readers the Mediterranean Sea, especially if they were not well acquainted with the geography of Palestine|fig:Map_Palestine-Jesus.jpg. “A line” (or “your line”) is much more idiomatic English than is the literal a hook. Of course, whether hook or “line” is used, some translators will have to add “for catching fish.” The instructions can be “Go down to the lake and throw out your fishing line” or “Go down to the lake with your line and catch a fish.”

A literal translation such as is found in Revised Standard Version and Barclay, take the first fish that comes up, may suggest voluntary action on the part of the fish. “Take the first fish that bites” (Jerusalem Bible), “Pull up the first fish you hook,” and “Take the first fish you catch” are more natural English expressions to describe catching fish.

When you open its mouth you will find a shekel will not be understood by the average English readers, who will not be familiar with a coin called shekel. Moreover, even if the reader should be familiar with shekel as the name of a coin, it is not likely that he would readily identify it as equal in value to two of the coins mentioned in verse 24. New English Bible has “silver coin,” which is indicated in the context to be of sufficient amount for the payment of the Temple tax for Jesus and Peter. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is able to use one word which means “assessment” or “tax amount”; Good News Translation qualifies shekel as “a coin worth enough for my Temple tax and yours.”

Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself is somewhat shortened in Good News Translation: “Take it and pay them our taxes”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “Take it and pay the assessment for both of us!”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .