This verse contains two rhetorical questions that in some languages will need to be rendered as statements; for example, “Some of you were already circumcised at the time God called you” and “but some of you were already uncircumcised when God called you.” Good News Bible, however, turns these rhetorical questions into conditional sentences: “If a circumcised man has…” and “If an uncircumcised man….” This is a natural way of expressing these rhetorical questions in English and some other languages.

His call is literally “was called.” Verse 17 states that this call comes from God. So languages that do not use the passive may render this phrase as “when you received God’s call” or “at the time when God called you.”

Circumcised will need a glossary note in translations that are intended for readers for whom the rite of circumcision has no religious meaning. See, for example, the Good News Bible Word List. For such modern readers it is almost impossible to convey the full meaning in translations except by adding a lot of information. Paul means two things in this verse: (1) “if you were a Jew when God called you, do not renounce your heritage” (see Rom 9.4-5); and (2) “if you were circumcised when God called you, do not try to conceal (or, remove) the marks of circumcision” (see 1 Maccabees 1.15). Thus a glossary note will be necessary to bring out these meanings that the Jews, of course, would have understood naturally.

The phrase marks of circumcision may be rendered as “the scars caused by circumcision” or “the scars caused by the circumcision ceremony.”

The second half of the verse, beginning with Was any one …, complements the first. In the first half, call is the aorist tense; in the second, it is the perfect tense. Paul must have used this variation for reasons of style, so on both occasions this verb may be translated the same way in most languages.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .