If integrated into the book of Daniel: 3.77-78

No doubt the patient translator has been following with ease the previous passages where verse order varies. Here it gets complicated, since there is even a reversal of order between Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation (New Revised Standard Version agrees with Good News Translation). To make it even more complicated, New English Bible has the text in the order of Good News Translation, but reverses the verse numbers! It is another example of the Theodotion text and the Septuagint reversing the order of verses. As before, New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible use the traditional order and numbering of the Septuagint and Vulgate. (It is strange that Revised Standard Version should follow the traditional order only here.) Catholic translators will probably want to follow the order of New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible. Those translating this passage as part of the Apocrypha will probably choose to follow the order and numbering of Good News Translation and New Revised Standard Version.

Springs: Good News Translation expands on springs (“springs of water”) because the English word happens to have several meanings. The word here refers to sources of water coming directly from the earth or out of rocks. In some arid areas and flat islands in the ocean, springs may not exist. In such cases translators need to use a descriptive phrase; for example, “places where water flows from the ground [or, rocks].”

Seas: If a translator is in an area that is far from a sea or ocean, and a lake is the prominent body of water, then the equivalent of “lakes” (Good News Translation) will be the better choice here.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.