Good News Translation restructures this sentence to present the thoughts in a more logical order and to make the contrast with the previous verse more apparent. The others refers to the preachers mentioned in verse 15a (Revised Standard Version; Bruce “the former”). This phrase must be rendered in a way that will show clearly that it refers to those who preached Christ out of jealousy and quarrelsomeness. It may be possible in some languages to use such an expression as “the former,” but frequently one must repeat part of the identifying elements in verse 15, for example, “the others, who are jealous, do not proclaim Christ sincerely.”
Not … sincerely is literally “not purely,” in the sense of “from mixed motives” (New English Bible). The translator must make certain that the negative not qualifies the sincerity with which the preaching is done. A literal rendering of the others do not proclaim Christ sincerely may suggest that they do not proclaim Christ at all. Those persons did, in fact, proclaim Christ, but they did not do so with pure motives. One must often translate the first part of verse 17 as “the others proclaim Christ, but they do not do so sincerely.” Not … sincerely may be rendered in some instances as “with bad motives,” “but what they want to accomplish is not right,” or “but their purposes are personal.” This meaning is brought out more clearly in the phrase which follows; from a spirit of selfish ambition is an amplification of not … sincerely.
From a spirit of selfish ambition is literally “out of partisanship.” The word “partisanship” originally meant “working for pay.” Since a man who works solely for pay works from a low motive, the term later acquired a bad sense—describing a person who serves in an official position for his own selfish purposes and to that end creates a “partisan spirit” (Phillips; Moffatt “for their own ends”). From a spirit of selfish ambition may be rendered as “because they simply want things for themselves,” “because they themselves want to get ahead,” or “because they want to surpass.”
Good News Translation changes a participle with a force of purpose into a finite verb, they think (Moffatt “intending”; Phillips “hoping”; New English Bible “meaning”; Goodspeed “imagining”). The word translated think occurs only here in the Pauline letters. It connotes the sense of thinking with a purpose which is based on wrong judgment or conceit (cf. the context of James 1.7).
They will make more trouble for me translates an infinitive construction meaning literally “to raise up affliction.” Good News Translation supplies for me, making explicit the goal of their malicious action (New English Bible “meaning to stir up fresh trouble for me”). They will make more trouble for me is clearly causative, and the closest natural equivalent, in many instances, is “they will cause me to suffer more,” or “they will cause me to have more difficulties.”
Since while I am in prison refers to Paul’s condition at the time, it may be useful to add an adverbial expression such as “here,” for example, “while I am here in prison.”
Quoted with permission from Luo, I-Jin. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .