complete verse (Ezekiel 22:9)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 22:9:

  • Kupsabiny: “Some of your people are tarnishing the names of others lying about them so they are killed. Some are eating sacrifices that have been offered to ancestral spirits. And others want to do only immoral things.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “There are people there in you who lie in-order to-kill others. There are also who eat the offerings to the little-gods/false-gods in the places-of-worship on the mountains and are-doing dirty/rude deeds.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Among you are men who tell lies in order to cause others to be executed. There are those who eatfood offered to idols at the hilltop shrines, and they perform disgusting sexual acts.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

2nd person pronoun with low register (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 second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.

In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also first person pronoun with low register and third person pronoun with low register.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 22:9

There are men in you who slander to shed blood: Some people in Jerusalem told lies in court so that other people would be condemned and executed. Although the text has men here and in the next two clauses, the term refers to “people” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), that is, men and women. Contemporary English Version provides a good model for this clause, saying “Some of your own people tell lies, so that others will be put to death” (similarly Good News Translation).

And men in you who eat upon the mountains: Eat upon the mountains refers to eating food sacrificed to false gods in the shrines on mountains (see 18.6). Good News Translation provides a good model here, saying “Some of them eat sacrifices offered to idols,” and so does New Century Version with “The people in you eat food offered to idols at the mountain places of worship.”

Men commit lewdness in your midst: The Hebrew word for lewdness is a general term for morally unacceptable and detestable actions, especially of a sexual nature (see 16.27, where it is rendered “lewd behavior”). New Century Version says “sexual sins.” This clause may be translated “they sin by having sex in ways [or, with people] that I have forbidden.” Again, the repetition of in you and in your midst stresses that the people were doing these sins inside the holy city.

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 .