And Jesus said to them: this is the first mention of Jesus by name in this narrative.

The wedding guests (New English Bible “the bridegroom’s friends”) translates a Semitic idiom, “sons of the bridechamber.” A common rendering is “the people invited to a wedding.” Another is to say “the friends of the bridegroom at a wedding.”

Mourn can be expressed as “be sad” or “be sorrowful.”

Can … with them?: in Greek the form of Jesus’ rhetorical question is such as to expect a negative answer, and so the basis for Good News Translation “Of course not!” In some languages a statement may be better, “You (certainly) do not expect….”

The days will come is translated somewhat more idiomatically by Good News Translation: (“But the day will come”), New English Bible (“The time will come”), and New Jerusalem Bible (“But the time will come”).

The verb is taken away occurs only here and in the parallels in Mark (2.20) and Luke (5.35). Some commentators understand the passive form of the verb to be a veiled allusion to Jesus’ coming death. This may be so, but to make explicit reference to his death in the present context would destroy the parabolic content of the saying. Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition translates by an active, which also satisfies the demands of the context: “must leave them.” For some languages a shift to the future tense may be required (Good News Translation “will be taken away”).

Using an active sentence such as “must leave them” loses some of the idea of violent removal that the passive is taken away conveys. However, since the imagery here is important, it would certainly be wrong to supply “God” as the agent. Perhaps translators may say “won’t be there (with them) any longer” or “won’t be able to be there” will fit well.

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 .