The phrase that is translated into English as “you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears” is translated into Afar as “You dry stones that nothing enters, and people who have hearts that refuse God, and ears closed saying we didn’t hear God’s message.” (stiff-necked > dry stones, uncircumcised in heart > hearts that refuse God, uncircumcised ears > ears closed to hearing God’s message) (Source: Loren Bliese)
Other translations for “uncircumcised in heart and ears” include:
- Rincón Zapotec: “it doesn’t enter your hearts or your ears. You are like those who don’t even believe”
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “hard are your hearts and not a little bit open are your ears”
- Morelos Nahuatl: “you have your heart as unbelievers, you do not want to hear God’s word”
- Highland Popoluca: “you never wanted to do God’s will, never truly believed”
- Teutila Cuicatec: “you are just the same as those who do not believe God’s word because you do not obey”
- Huichol: “you have not been marked with God’s sign in your hearts or in your ears (you are unruly and unsubmissive like an untamed, unbranded bronco)”
- Ojitlán Chinantec: “you do not have the word-sign in your hearts. Your ears are clogged”
- Copainalá Zoque: “you just don’t understand”
- Isthmus Mixe: “your hearts and minds are not open” (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
- Kaqchikel: “with your hearts unprepared” (Source: Nida 1964, p. 220)
In Chichewa (interconfessional translation) “stiff-necked” is translated as “hard-headed.” (Source: Wendland 1987, p. 130)
The Greek that is translated “righteous” in this verse is rendered as “did what he should” (Eastern Highland Otomi), “walked straight” (Sayula Popoluca), “was a man with a good heart” (Huichol), “his life was straight” (Southern Bobo Madaré), “was completely good” (San Mateo del Mar Huave) (the translation into San Mateo del Mar Huave does not imply sinless perfection) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida), “those who say, ‘I don’t do evil’” (Navajo) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel).
For other translations of this term see righteous / righteousness.
The Greek that is translated as “grace upon grace” or similar in English is translated in Huichol as “He treats us with graciousness, and keeps increasing it.” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
See also grace.
The Greek that is translated as “glorify God” in English is rendered as “to wake God up” in Guerrero Amuzgo.
Other translations are “say that God is very great” (Central Tarahumara), “how good God is, they said” (Tzotzil), “to speak about God as good” (Tzeltal), “to give God a great name” (Highland Puebla Nahuatl), “to give God highness” (Kipsigis), “to take God out high” (in the sense of “to exalt”) (Huautla Mazatec), “to make great, to exalt” (Toraja-Sa’dan, Javanese), “to lift up God’s brightness” (Kpelle), “to show God to be great” (Central Pame), “to make God shine” (Wayuu), “to make God’s name big” (Huastec), “to make God important” (Isthmus Zapotec) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida), or “say to God: You are of good heart” (Huichol) (source: Nida 1964, p. 228).
In Waama this is translated as “make God’s name big.” (For the translation into Waama, five categories of verb doxazo and the noun doxa were found that were all translated differently, see glorify (reveal God’s or Jesus’ glory to people)).
In Shipibo-Conibo it is translated as “to brag about God” (“This may strike some at first as being an unspiritual approach, but it surely is Pauline, for Paul used the word ‘to brag’ when he declared his confidence in Jesus Christ and in the salvation of the world which God wrought through His Son.”) (Source: Nida 1952, p. 162)
The Greek that is translated in English as “(you) whitewashed wall” is translated in Lalana Chinantec much more specifically as “you are like a masonry wall on which they have put white paint. It is no longer evident what it is like inside.” (Source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2ff.).
The same is translated as “deceiver” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac, as “you talk up above (not from the heart)” in Eastern Highland Otomi, as “you change words (you are a hypocrite)” in Morelos Nahuatl, as “you are not what you appear to be, like a wall that is white washed” in Huichol, as “you two faced person” in Mezquital Otomi, or “you who make your face broad” in Rincón Zapotec. (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
The Greek that is translated as “swear (an oath)” or “vow” is translated as “God sees me, I tell the truth to you” (Tzeltal), “loading yourself down” (Huichol), “to speak-stay” (implying permanence of the utterance) (Sayula Popoluca), “to say what he could not take away” (San Blas Kuna), “because of the tight (i.e. “binding”) word which he had said to her face” (Guerrero Amuzgo) or “strong promise” (North Alaskan Inupiatun). (Source for all above: Bratcher / Nida)
In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matt. 6:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matt 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)
Seer also swear (promise) and Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’, or ‘No, No’.
The Greek that is translated as “Pentecost” in English is translated in Huichol as “festival of the 7th week” It was rendered thus because the name of Pentecost would be equated with a sect only, and a harvest festival in late May would strain credibility. (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
The Greek that is translated as “in the last days” in English is translated as “there will be a day” in Eastern Highland Otomi, as “when the world is about to turn around” in Isthmus Mixe, as “when the time comes that the sky will soon perish” in Lalana Chinantec, as “when it will nearly be time for the world to come to an end” in Chichimeca-Jonaz, as “while the last day is near” in Tzotzil, and as “close to when the end comes” in Huichol. (Source for this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
The Greek that is translated as a form of “teach” is translated with some figurative phrases such as “to engrave the mind” (Ngäbere) or “to cause others to imitate” (Huichol). (Source: Bratcher / Nida)
In Nyongar it is translated as karni-waangki or “truth saying” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
The Greek that is translated as “my flesh will live in hope” or similar in English is translated these ways in the following languages.
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “when my body rests in the grave I will wait what good he will do for me”
- Morelos Nahuatl: “I have much confidence that my body will come alive”
- Isthmus Mixe: “even though my body should die, I know that I will come to life
- Falam Chin: “my whole body will be filled with hope”
- Huichol: “even though my corpse is there while I wait I believe (you will not leave my soul dead)” (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
The Greek that is translated as “does the will of God” is translated into Huichol as “follow God’s heart.”
The Greek that is often translated as “wonder” into English is different from the term that is translated as “miracle” (see miracle) since it “usually involves some unusual phenomena in nature which are a portent of dire woe or extraordinary blessing.” In Huichol these are “awe-inspiring things,” in Yucateco they are “things which show what is coming,” and in Eastern Highland Otomi the expression must be cast into the form of a verb phrase “they will amaze the people.”