The Greek imperatives “see” and “hear” have been transformed by the Good News Translation into a statement you can see and hear for yourselves (see also New English Bible), though most translators prefer to retain the imperative. If one were to preserve the imperative forms of see and hear, it might imply that Demetrius himself was encouraging the men to listen to what Paul was saying, which, of course, is not the case.

The pronoun in Greek which is rendered this fellow definitely implies a slur against Paul. In colloquial English this might be rendered as “this guy Paul.”

Gods made by men are not gods at all appears in the New English Bible as “gods made by human hands are not gods at all” and in the New American Bible as “man-made gods are no gods at all.” There are certain difficulties involved in the translation of the second sentence of verse 26, since gods is used in two different senses. In the first instances gods refers to images, and in the second instance gods refers to “supernatural beings” or “supernatural powers.” In some languages one simply cannot say gods made by men are not gods at all. It is necessary to employ two different types of expression—for example, “images which men make are not gods,” “the statues of gods have no power as gods,” or “the images which men make are really not gods.”

Has succeeded in convincing many people may require some type of supplementation—for example, “has succeeded in convincing many people that what he says is true” or “has succeeded in causing many people to believe that these images are not gods.”

The final phrases both here in Ephesus and in nearly the whole province of Asia may need to be rendered as a complete sentence: “Paul has done this not only here in Ephesus, but in almost the whole province of Asia.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .