If integrated into the book of Daniel: 3.25

Then Azariah …: The translator who considers this passage as part of Dan 3 may wish to refer to Azariah here as Abednego since he has just been referred to by that name in Dan 3.22-23, and will be called Abednego in the Aramaic text after the addition (Dan 3.93). This would cause less trouble for the reader. One could argue that the Hebrew name Azariah is appropriate in this context, since it is as a Jew that he offers his prayer to the Lord. But this is subtle. If a translator feels strongly about it, both names could be used in some way, such as “Then Abednego, a Jew whose Hebrew name was Azariah….” For the translator working with this material as a book of the Apocrypha, this is not a problem; the young man is simply Azariah as in verse 1.

Stood; that is, he stopped walking and “stood still” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).

Offered this prayer … opened his mouth and said; that is, “he prayed aloud” (Good News Translation; similarly Contemporary English Version). The effect of the two verbs here in Greek, or at least in the original Semitic text, is to present this as a dramatic moment. This is clearer if one notices the parallelism here: stood/ opened his mouth; offered this prayer/ said. In English opened his mouth hardly signals a dramatic moment; it merely sounds odd. If other ways can be found of turning this verse into a climactic moment, it would improve the translation. A possibility might be “Then Azariah stood still, and there, from [or, in the heart of] the fire, he prayed this prayer.”

In the midst of the fire may be translated “there in the fire” (Good News Translation), or we may even follow Contemporary English Version and omit the phrase as repetitive.

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.