Good nurse, nourish your sons: Good nurse is another reference to the mother (the Church). For the Latin word rendered nurse, see the comments on 2 Esd 1.28-29; for your sons, see verse 15. Good News Bible renders this clause as “Take care of your children like a faithful nursemaid,” and Contemporary English Version has “Be like a good nursemaid—feed your children well.” Both these models are not quite what the writer has in mind. A more accurate rendering is “Nurse your children like a good mother.”

And strengthen their feet renders the same figurative Latin expression translated “establish their feet” in verse 15 (see the comments there). Here it may be expressed as “Bring them up [or, Raise them] to be strong.”

Translators working with a language that distinguishes second person singular and plural will have little problem here, since verse 24 will be plural, but this verse will go back to the singular, obviously signaling that the mother is being addressed. An alternative model of this verse for such a language is:

• Nurse your children like a good mother, and bring them up to be strong.

Other translators, like those working in English, will have a problem here, since the female figure must be addressed in some way, after the address to the children. Something must be found that sounds natural. English can offer little help here. “Mother” sounds as if one is addressing one’s own mother. “Nurse” suggests a doctor’s nurse. “Woman” is rude. Our best suggestion is the following model for this verse:

• But as for you, be a good mother to your children. Nurse them and bring them up to be strong.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.