truly truly - I tell you

The Greek that is often translated in English as “truly, truly, I tell you” or similar is translated in the Russian BTI translation (publ. 2015) as Поверьте Мне (Pover’te Mne) or “trust me.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

See also Amen.

complete verse (Matthew 25:45)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 25:45:

  • Uma: “‘And I the King, I will answer them: ‘So that you know: because you didn’t help these people here whose lives are small, it means that it was I that you didn’t help.’ ‘” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then I will answer, I say, ‘Truly I tell you if you did not help my disciples of low status, I was whom you did not help.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then I, the king, will answer, ‘I tell you that if you didn’t help even one of these whose rank is very low, I am the one you didn’t help.’ And these people,’ said Jesus, ‘will be taken away from here because they will be punished with a punishment forever. However, the righteous, by contrast, they will be given life forever.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘After that I will say to them, ‘This that I tell you is true that when you refused to help even one of the least-important (lit. lowest) of these who are my brothers, you also refused to help me.’ ‘” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “I will answer them, ‘This which I will say to you is really true. When you witheld your help from the most insignificant one who is like my sibling, I am the one you witheld from.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “The ruler will then say: ‘Truly I tell you, that when you haven’t helped the people here who are not respected by people, then also you did not help me,’ he will say.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

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 Matthew 25:45

See comments at verse 40. Here the text has simply one of the least of these and does not mention “brothers.” Translators usually say “one of these least important people.” Barclay has “one of these, even for the least of them.”

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 .