In these two verses Paul uses a series of terms which may sound foreign to the English reader, though they are actually very closely related to concepts held by people who believe in astrology. Most, if not all, of the terms are technical terms denoting astrological powers which were thought to exercise control over man and his fate. Following the mention of death and life, the actual order in which Paul lists these in verse 38 is: angels, (heavenly) rulers, the present, the future, and (heavenly) powers. Angels, rulers, and powers may describe astrological forces, and it is highly probable that the present and the future fit into the same category. The Good News Translation has slightly reordered the list, placing the present and the future together, so as to make the list sound more natural to the English reader. Moreover, a classifier, heavenly, has been placed before rulers and powers to indicate more accurately the nature of these forces, since if they were left unqualified the reader might think immediately of earthly rulers and powers.

It is not at all easy to find terms which will be meaningful in a receptor language, especially one in which there is no reflection of such belief in astrological powers. Furthermore, there are special difficulties, since some of these terms represent celestial objects (for example, angels and heavenly rulers), others are abstract (the present and the future), while still others refer to events (death and life). It may therefore be necessary in some languages to employ a number of different kinds of expressions. A translation of verse 38 may have the following semantically restructured form: “For I am certain that nothing is able to take us away from his loving us; it makes no difference whether we die or whether we live; angels, rulers, and powers in heaven are not able to separate us from his love, and what is happening now and what will happen in the future will not be able to separate us from his love.”

The terms world above and world below are literally “height” and “depth.” These also were technical astrological terms—the first referring to the highest position that a given star could reach and the second to the region below the horizon out of which the stars rise. To translate literally (even if one capitalizes the terms “height” and “depth,” as Moffatt does) fails to convey the force of these terms to the English reader. The Good News Translation attempts to come up with something that is nearest in meaning to what Paul has in mind, and so translates: neither the world above nor the world below.

The rendering of the phrases neither the world above nor the world below may be treated in a manner parallel to what has been suggested for the series in verse 38—for example, “neither the world that is above us nor the world that is below us can separate us from Christ’s love.” However, in many languages a more meaningful translation would be “nothing that is above the world and nothing that is below the world can separate us from Christ’s love.” Such a translation anticipates the following clause (there is nothing in all creation …) and may be connected to it by some such phrase as “in fact” or “that is to say”—for example, “in fact there is nothing in everything which has been created which will ever be able to separate us.”

The phrase “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” conveys little, if any, meaning to the English reader in this form. The Good News Translation (along with other translations) tries to make Paul’s meaning explicit: the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord (see New American Bible “the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord”; An American Translation* “the love God has shown in Christ Jesus our Lord”). This love of God … through Christ Jesus may be expressed in some languages as “God’s love which he has shown by means of Christ Jesus our Lord,” “God’s love which we experience because of Christ Jesus our Lord,” or “God’s love which Jesus Christ our Lord has caused us to experience.”

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 .