Verses 20-25 repeat and expand what is said in verses 15-19. Here the rules are repeated for the benefit of a much later time, when the land of Israel will have grown considerably larger than it was at the time of the conquest.

When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you: here Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation are the same (except for the final you, missing in Good News Translation). In some languages it will be helpful to place the clause as he has promised you at the beginning of the verse; for example, “The LORD has promised that later on he will give you [plural] more land.” For the LORD your God see 1.6.

And you say, ‘I will eat flesh,’ because you crave flesh: in Hebrew the second person singular is directed to Israel as a whole, and so to every individual. As Good News Translation shows, it is not necessary to keep the direct quotation “ ‘I will eat meat’ ”; rather we can say simply “and you want to eat meat” or “and you get hungry for meat.” Then what follows comes naturally: “You may eat as much as you wish, any time you want to.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .