When the wine had given out must be rendered in an active form in many languages, and in that case those who drank the wine must be specified, for example, “When the guests at the wedding had run out of wine.”

There may be certain complications in identifying the referent of they in the expression they are out of wine. They could, of course, refer to the guests at the wedding, who had no more wine, or it could be the host and his family, who were responsible for providing the wine. The problem may be resolved in some languages by simply translating “There is no more wine.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .