Following are a number of back-translations of James 5:4:
- Uma: “The people who work in your gardens, you didn’t/don’t give them salary. Listen to their groaning/suffering! The workers who harvest in your gardens cry out requesting help, and their cry is heard by the Lord God, the Leader of the soldiers of heaven.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “You, the rich people, you did not pay wages to the people working in your field. Listen to their complaints. The people you told to harvest your fields really complain and they are heard by the Most Powerful God.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The money which you did not use to pay those who worked in your fields will be evidence against you before God. The accusation of those who harvested on your land has been heard by the powerful Lord.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “And God who is all powerful, he has most-definitely seen the money you withheld that you should have paid-as-salary to those who worked-by-the-day harvesting in your fields. He has also heard their pleas-for-mercy.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “For look at this, as for the wages which you didn’t give to those you caused to harvest in your fields, it’s like they are noising-loudly. (They are) asking for help against you. It’s true that the pathetic-lamentings of these whom you caused to work can reach to God who is almighty (lit. of superior supernatural-power).” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “The workers who work in your fields, you haven’t given them their wages. They accuse you that you haven’t paid them. God who alone rules all things hears what the workers say as they accuse you.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
- Mezquital Otomi: “Hear the cries of your workers, those who harvested your fields. They are crying because you have deceived them and you haven’t paid them as they were deserving. But our Lord, indeed the King of all the many angels in heaven, has heard the cries of those your workers.”
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “Think how you did with your laborers, those poor men who harvested your harvest. You deceived them so they would work for you and you did not pay them their full wages. And in that you owe them it is apparent that you are evil-doers. God will hear the laborers, in their mourning, God who rules the angels in heaven.”
- Alekano: “After they had done sweaty work cutting the grass in the garden, and you had unfairly not given them pay, the workers cried, and God saw that sin . . .” (Source for this and two above: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation July, 1967, p. 5ff.)
For the Old Testament quote, see Isaiah 5:9.
