The speed of the sentence increases with a series of short phrases or single words. This effect should be kept in translation if possible.

Stoned implies that these victims were killed by stoning, not that they merely had a few stones thrown at them. Stoning was a recognized form of execution, and as in Acts 7.58-60, mobs sometimes took the law into their own hands. In order to indicate clearly that stoning resulted in death, it may be necessary to translate They were stoned as “They died because people hurled stones at them” or “Stones were thrown at them until they died.”

Many manuscripts add “they were tempted (or, tested)” before or after they were sawn in two; there are other variants. These words are omitted by the UBS Greek New Testament and the text of most modern translations. It is difficult to say whether “they were tempted” was omitted because it is similar in Greek to the expression for they were sawn in two, or whether it was added by a scribe who misread the same word a second time. New English Bible‘s footnote “they were put to the question” is an old way of saying “they were tortured to make them confess.”

They went around may be translated “they wandered about,” indicating the nature of their persecution. The point is that they had no clothes in the usual sense of the word.

Clothed in skins of sheep or goats may be rendered as “their only clothes were the skins of sheep or goats.” The reference here is to skin with the hair on it and probably untanned.

Poor: Barclay‘s “they had not even the bare necessities of life” is too long and heavy but gives the exact meaning of the word used. “They were desperately poor” may be an appropriate equivalent.

Persecuted translates a word which suggests oppression, the opposite of freedom of action, or living in a confined space. “Under constraint” is an English equivalent, though not in common language.

The word for mistreated is a general term, but since it is an unusual word in the Bible (13.3; compare 11.25) and occurs here near the climax of the sentence, a stronger translation such as “tormented” would be possible. The word is common in this sense in ancient writings outside the New Testament.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .