Good News Translation begins a new paragraph here because the focus changes to Tobit speaking to his son. Translators are urged to follow Good News Translation in this.

He called his son Tobias, and when he came to him he said: This is Tobias coming to Tobit. Good News Translation omits the idea of coming, since it is obvious when Tobit begins speaking that Tobias has answered his father’s call and is present. However, in certain languages this can be expressed as “So Tobit called for Tobias to come to him, and said….”

My son is literally “child.” In some languages this will be the natural term in this context. In other languages, however, it will be better style to use Tobias’s name or simply “Son” (Good News Translation).

When I die does not occur in the Greek text, but is a helpful and perfectly natural clause to build in, and we need not seek a textual basis in the Latin, as does New Revised Standard Version. (The other Greek text has “If I die,” but Tobit is actually expecting to die soon; after all, he has prayed for death.)

Give me a proper burial reflects our Greek text here; we may also express this as “bury me well.”

Do not abandon her all the days of her life: Good News Translation “Take care of her for the rest of her life” is a positive command, rather than the more literal and negatively stated imperative in New Revised Standard Version, which could be misunderstood to mean that it would be acceptable to abandon her occasionally.

Do whatever pleases her: Good News Translation “try to make her happy” could suggest that making her happy might not be easy to do. This is not suggested by the Greek, which simply says “do what is pleasing to her.” Contemporary English Version “do whatever she asks” is another possible rendering.

Do not grieve her in anything may be rendered “Never do anything that will cause her to be sorrowful.”

Remember … she faced many dangers for you while you were in her womb: Remember may also be expressed as “Don’t forget.” Tobias is probably not being advised to remember that “she risked her life…” (Good News Translation), although that is possible. More likely he is to remember her, that is, to “be mindful of her,” “never forget her,” because she (literally) “saw many dangers for your sake.” She endured them; New Revised Standard Version faced expresses the idea well. While you were in her womb is a natural expression in a number of languages, but in English as in many other languages something like “She faced many dangers before she gave birth to you [or, brought you into the world]” is more natural style. It would also be possible to restructure with New Jerusalem Bible, “Remember, my child, all the risks she ran for your sake when you were in her womb.”

Bury her beside me in the same grave: The shorter “bury her beside me” in Good News Translation avoids a potentially awkward problem. The literal in the same grave seems to presuppose a setting back in the Jewish homeland, where people were buried in natural caves or in tombs hewn out of the rock, which could be reused. Yet in Tob 8.9, 18 a grave for Tobias (in Media) is actually dug from the earth in a short space of time and filled in again. Perhaps the author, living in Judea, is aware of burial customs in the East, but at this point uses the idiom, in the same grave, which is more appropriate to his own local place and practice. Translators are urged to follow the rendering of Good News Translation.

Good News Translation restructures verses 3-4, giving the instruction about burying the mother before the command to remember her. But it can be argued that the burial advice is just as logical here at the end, where the author placed it.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Tobit. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.