Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah may be considered unnecessarily redundant in some languages since some of this information occurs already at the end of the previous verse.

God has been capitalized in Revised Standard Version because the reference is to Yahweh, the God of Israel. But since these words were spoken by the king of Assyria, who did not worship Yahweh, Good News Translation spells this English noun with a small letter “g,” saying “god.” In languages that do not have a distinction between small letters and capitals, there will not be a problem here. In this context the decision of Good News Translation to spell God with a small letter “g” seems most appropriate for English.

For the verb rely, see the comments at 2 Kgs 18.5, where it is rendered “trusted.”

Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria: Since it is the king of Assyria who is speaking, many languages will find it unnatural to have him referring to himself in this way. Instead of using the third person reference, it will be better to use the first person singular pronoun “my” as in Good News Translation. Where the word hand is not a natural way of conveying the notion of power, as it does in Hebrew, a literal rendering of this term should be avoided. Many languages will say something like “Jerusalem will not come under my domination” or “… submit to my power.”

This verse contains a quotation within another quotation in Revised Standard Version (actually three levels of quotation in the Hebrew). One of the two quotations may be made indirect as in Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .