complete verse (Ezekiel 18:31)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 18:31:

  • Kupsabiny: “Abandon every sin that you did and be renewed in your lives. Why should you die, stomach of Israel?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “People of Israel, why do you want to die? Stop now your sinning and make-new/renew now your lives.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Get rid of all your wicked behavior, and get a new way of thinking. You Israeli people , do you really want to be executed for your sins?/you act as though you want to be executed for your sins.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 18:31

Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me: This idiom of “throwing away sins” is not to be taken literally; it means to stop sinning. Contemporary English Version says “Give up your evil ways,” and New Century Version has “Get rid of all the sins you have done.” Revised Standard Version changes the Hebrew text here by adding against me, that is, against God, but the evidence for doing so is so weak that it is best to omit this phrase.

And get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit is literally “and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit” (similarly King James Version, New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), but a literal rendering can be misleading if it gives the impression of building something with the hands. For a new heart and a new spirit, see 11.19. As there, it may be better to remove the imagery by rendering this clause as “Start thinking in new ways. Begin desiring different things.”

Why will you die, O house of Israel?: This is a final plea for the Israelites to deal with the seriousness of their situation—if they continue to sin, they will be punished and die. The questions Why will you die…? and “Why do you … want to die?” (Good News Translation) may be misleading because obviously the people are hoping not to die. In some languages it may be necessary to expand the question to make the sense clear; for example, one possible model is “Otherwise [or, If you do not do this], you will die. Is that what you Israelites want?”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .