For is a conjunction introducing the explanation for what has been stated in the preceding verse. Good News Translation expands it to make the meaning clearer: “This was because….” The Ammonites and Moabites were excluded because of how they had treated the Israelites when they were “on their way out of Egypt” as Good News Translation makes explicit. This information will need to be made explicit in many other languages also.
They did not meet the children of Israel with bread and water: Unlike the Edomites who sold bread and water to the Israelites (Deut 2.26-29), the Ammonites and Moabites did not allow the Israelites to have any provisions (Deut 23.4). According to Num 21.21-23, it was not the Ammonites or Moabites but rather the Amorites who refused to allow the Israelites to pass peacefully through their territory. In Num 22–24 the Moabites tried to get Balaam to curse the Israelites. Here as in Deut 23.3-4 the Ammonites and Moabites are both blamed for their bad treatment of the Israelites.
Bread and water are the most basic requirements for human beings to survive (see 1 Kgs 18.4). Bread may refer to food in general, just as water may represent drinks in general. Many versions translate the two terms explicitly as Revised Standard Version has done. Others translate “food and water” like Good News Translation (so New American Bible, Revised English Bible) or “food and drink” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy). This approach is particularly helpful in areas where the staple food is not bread, but rice, yam, sorghum or something else. Bible en français courant uses verbs instead of nouns in its rendering, which is “[anything] to eat or drink.” Translators should use an appropriate equivalent expression in the receptor culture for the act of inhospitality and hostility here.
Hired Balaam against them to curse them: According to Num 22–24, the Moabites were the ones who hired Balaam to curse the Israelites. Balaam is identified in Josh 13.22 as a fortune-teller or a diviner. To curse is to call upon a higher power or authority to bring evil or harm upon someone. As a diviner, Balaam was considered to have special powers that would make his curses effective. The Moabites accordingly hired him to place a curse upon the Israelites; that is, they paid money to Balaam for him to pronounce a curse (so Good News Translation).
Yet our God turned the curse into a blessing means that Balaam was never able to utter a curse against the people of Israel, but only to give a blessing (Deut 23.5). Instead of the curse that Balak wanted Balaam to pronounce, the Spirit of God led him to pronounce a blessing on the people of Israel (Num 24). Instead of calling on God to bring ill fortune upon the Israelites, Balaam invoked God’s help and protection and goodness on behalf of Israel. For comments on the concept of blessing, see Ezra 7.27.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .