Do not pay him back with evil may be rendered as “do not do evil to him in return” or “do not be bad to him as he has been bad to you.”

The second part of this verse, try to do what all men consider to be good, comes from the Septuagint of Proverbs 3.4.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .