complete verse (Matthew 11:24)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 11:24:

  • Uma: “So, so that you know: on the Kiama Day God’s punishing of you will be greater than his punishing of the Sodom people long ago.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “I tell you,’ said Isa, ‘when the day is reached when God judges mankind, the judgment for you will be much heavier than the judgment for the place Sodom, the place well known for the sin of her people.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Don’t you forget that in the future on the day when God sees to mankind, his punishment on you will be greater than on those of Sodom.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Therefore I say to you that the punishment of those-from-Sodoma will be less-severe than yours on the day that God judges people.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “But this which I will say to you really is the truth, that at the day of judging, the punishment for you will be much heavier than that of the taga Sodoma.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “I tell you that on the day when people are judged, these people of Capernaum will suffer greater punishment than will be suffered by the people who lived in the town of Sodom.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

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.

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing his disciples and common people

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.

In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.

Translation commentary on Matthew 11:24

But I tell you are the words that introduced verse 22. See verse 22 also for proposals regarding the translation of this verse.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .