And they collected money: The collection of funds is presented as another response to the reading of the book. Good News Translation presents it wrongly as an action that followed later by beginning with “Then” (meaning “After all this was over, then they….”) No connective is needed, not even and. They collected money is not a continuous action, but a one-time action.

Each giving what he could is literally “according as the hand of each was able,” which is a Hebrew idiom. It is very close to the Greek text of Deut 16.10.

Good News Translation combines the two clauses in this verse, but this is not appropriate here. The idea of making a collection should be expressed before people giving money is mentioned. The New Revised Standard Version (New Revised Standard Version) is helpful here: “they collected as much money as each could give” (similarly Contemporary English Version).

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.