The men that make them will certainly not live very long: “Even their makers do not live long lives” (Good News Translation) is not saying that woodworkers and goldsmiths have short lives as a kind of occupational hazard. It is simply that they can’t expect to live any longer than anyone else. So we may say “These workers are humans and die like everyone else” (Contemporary English Version).

How then can the things that are made by them be gods?: Good News Translation “so how are they able to create gods?” turns a cumbersome passive construction into a simpler active one. But by use of the verb “create,” it manages to convey a fine detail of meaning in the Greek, which is literally “How can it come about that the things fashioned by them are gods?”

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.