The Greek in Romans 5:4 that is translated as “character” (or “experience”) in English is translated in the following ways:
- Pitjantjatjara: “we become with strength and don’t fall, and God seeing us is pleased” (source: Carl Gross)
- Hopi: “maturity”
- Isthmus Zapotec: “standing firm”
- Central Tarahumara: “being called as doers of good”
- Miahuatlán Zapotec: “showing people we really believe in Christ”
- Central Mazahua as “knowing that we passed well” (source for this and four above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
- Bariai “God is happy with us because we overcome/surpass various kinds of testings” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
See also complete verse (Romans 5:4).
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adultery” in English (here etymologically meaning “to alter”) is typically understood as “marital infidelity.” It is (back-) translated in the following ways:
- Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
- Yucateco: “pair-sin”
- Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
- Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog” (see also licentiousness)
- Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage”
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
- Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
- Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
- Tzeltal: “practice illicit relationship with women”
- Huehuetla Tepehua: “live with some one who isn’t your wife”
- Central Tarahumara: “sleep with a strange partner”
- Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and seven above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
- German: Ehebrecher or “marriage breaker” / Ehe brechen or “breaking of marriage” (source: Zetzsche)
- In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source: David Clark)
- In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)
- Likewise in Hiligaynon: “commit-adultery-with-a-man or commit-adultery-with-a-woman” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
See also adultery, adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.
The Greek in Romans 5:1 that is translated as “peace with God” in English is translated as “there’s nothing between us and God” in Hopi, as “we are at fellowship with God” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui, as “God has no anger toward us” in Huehuetla Tepehua, as “we have a good relationship with God” in Isthmus Zapotec, and as “we are living well with God” in Mezquital Otomi. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
The Greek in Romans 8:26 that is translated as “intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” is translated as “is the one who asks in our place when we just sigh, we do not find the words to say” in Highland Totonac, as “when we cannot speak, we groan in our hearts, then the Holy Spirit himself pleads to God for us” in Hopi, as “instead, the very good Spirit of God himself for us asking speaks with God. And he only speaks with groanings, he does not speak so we can understand” in Central Tarahumara, and as “the Holy Spirit himself groans in our hearts in a way which we cannot tell how he does, because he very much prays to God for us” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
“Too deep for words” is translated in Catholic Mandarin Chinese Sigao version and the Protestant Union Version with a Chinese idiom: wúkě yányù (無可言喻 / 无可言喻), lit. “cannot (expressed in) metaphors.” (Source: Toshikazu S. Foley in Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies, 2011, p. 45ff.)
The Greek that is translated as “principalities” or “rulers” in English is translated in various ways:
The Greek in Romans 1:26 that is translated as “exchanged natural relations for unnatural” or similar in English is translated as
The Greek in Romans 1:27 that is translated as “were consumed with passion for one another” or similar in English is translated as “became dark in their hearts by a lustful heart toward one another” in Hopi, as “only exceedingly desired to do evil in a different way with other men” in Central Tarahumara, and as “with ardent desire doing what is not good” in Sierra de Juárez Zapotec. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
The Greek that is translated as “heartless” in English is translated as “don’t love their fellows” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui, as “don’t delight in people” in Hopi, and as “didn’t love like people should” in Huehuetla Tepehua. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
