The order of elements within this verse is rearranged by the Good News Translation and certain elements made explicit. Let us conduct ourselves properly (literally “let us walk properly”) comes as the second element in the Greek sentence. The New English Bible handles this clause similarly: “Let us behave with decency as befits the day.” “To walk” is a Semitic expression meaning “to live one’s life,” and since this verb is also aorist, as are the verbs in the preceding sentence, it may also have the force of “let us begin to conduct ourselves properly.” In some languages this may be equivalent to “we must begin to live as we should” or “we must begin to behave as we should.”
In Greek this sentence begins with an adverbial phrase (literally “as in day”) which the Good News Translation understands in the sense of as people who live in the light of day. Since the contrast between light and darkness may not be clear in some languages, it may be possible to say “as people who live in the light and not in the darkness.” The contrast with darkness is designed to highlight the moral implications in this context which might be lost by an expression “who live in the light of day.”
It is difficult to distinguish in meaning between the Greek words translated orgies and drunkenness. If any distinction in meaning is to be sought, the first denotes both heavy drinking and sexual immorality, while the second relates more strictly to drunkenness. The word rendered orgies is used elsewhere in the New Testament only in Galatians 5.21 and 1 Peter 4.3, while the word rendered drunkenness occurs elsewhere only in Luke 21.34 and Galatians 5.21. Because these terms are essentially synonymous, the real meaning of this type of combination is “all kinds of orgies” or, as in some languages, “all kinds of drunkenness.”
The word translated immorality appears elsewhere in the New Testament in a very different sense, but there is no doubt as to its meaning in the present passage. The word rendered indecency occurs more frequently in the New Testament than the one translated immorality, but again these are basically synonymous terms. The word rendered indecency occurs elsewhere in Mark 7.22; 2 Corinthians 12.21; Galatians 5.19; Ephesians 4.19; 1 Peter 4.3; 2 Peter 2.7. In translating this word one may also employ a phrase which will emphasize the wide range of meaning—for example, “all kinds of immorality.”
Fighting translates the same word that Paul used in 1.29, while jealousy translates the same word that was used in 10.2 in the phrase “they have a zeal” (Good News Translation they are deeply devoted). The original meaning of the word rendered jealousy was “zeal,” but when used with evil connotations the meaning becomes “jealousy” or “envy.”
The negative prohibitions in the second part of verse 13 may be expressed as imperatives—for example, “You must not engage in all kinds of drunkenness and immorality; you should not strive with one another and be jealous with one another.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .