complete verse (Ephesians 4:19)

Following are a number of back-translations of Ephesians 4:19:

  • Uma: “They no longer know shame, with the result that they follow the desires of their bodies that are wicked/evil, and they so very much like to do all kinds of behavior/deeds that are not right.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “They are no longer ashamed. That is what they always only follow, their cravings/greed and they are after the opposite sex and they are-never/refuse-to-be satisfied.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “They are not ashamed of any of their evil behavior and they also do not control the ugly desires of their bodies, but rather they are very pleased with filthy behavior.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Therefore they no longer have any shame, because whatever their bodies want that is bad or shameful, they are doing it without stopping.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For they have thoroughly accustomed themselves to endulging disgusting desires without any self control at all. What they are always attending-to/facing is, this evil of theirs. (They) don’t rest (from it).” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “They have very much given their hearts over to living in evil. Afterwards they do not feel ashamed. They are happier when they do different kinds of evil.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Ephesians 4:19

The description of the heathens’ spiritual condition continues without a break from verse 18, and begins with the perfect participle of a Greek verb (which occurs only here in the New Testament) which describes complete loss of feeling; Revised Standard Version “callous”; Translator’s New Testament “Dead to all feeling of shame.” It is the ultimate in moral depravity, a lack of shame or guilt for any sin or vice.

It may be difficult to speak of “losing a feeling,” but one can translate they have lost all feeling of shame as “they no longer feel any shame about anything” or “no longer can anything make them feel ashamed” or “… anything which they have done make them feel ashamed” or “they are no longer able to feel shame for the bad things they do.”

Give … over translates a verb meaning “to deliver, hand over,” which in Romans 1.24, 26, 28 is used three times of God turning the Gentiles over to their own folly and sin. It may be difficult to speak of a person “giving himself over to something,” but one can in some instances say “they want to do nothing else than engage in vice” or “they spend all their time doing bad things.”

Vice translates a Greek noun meaning “indecent conduct, debauchery, licentiousness”; it occurs in other lists of vices: Mark 7.22; 2 Corinthians 12.21; Galatians 5.19; 1 Peter 4.3. There may be no generic term for vice, but it is always possible to employ a phrase such as “drunkenness and illicit sex” or “drunkenness and immorality” or, more generally, “evil practices.”

Do translates a noun which means “working, doing.” Indecent things translates “uncleanness, impurity” (New English Bible “foul desires”); it appears also in 5.3; Colossians 3.5. Without restraint translates the prepositional phrase “in avarice, greed, covetousness.” The Greek noun (also 5.3) describes the desire to have more, the lack of restraint in conduct.

The final clause of verse 19 may be rendered as “they do not hold themselves back at all from doing (or, they don’t stop doing) all kinds of bad things.” In order to reflect something of the indecency suggested by the Greek term, one may use such figurative expressions as “from sins that make them dirty” or even “from sins that stink.”

The sins listed here are mainly, but not exclusively, sexual in nature.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1982. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .