Do not be anxious: Good News Bible and Contemporary English Version say “Don’t worry.”

For when the day of tribulation and anguish comes: The day of tribulation and anguish is the day of God’s judgment (compare Rom 2.5-9). The Latin word for tribulation refers to external trouble, and the word for anguish can point to internal torment or external hardship. Good News Bible renders this phrase as “the day of trouble and distress.”

Others shall weep and be sorrowful, but you shall rejoice and have abundance: Compare John 16.20-22. These two clauses may be rendered “other people will be sad and cry, but you will be happy and rich” (similarly Good News Bible).

Good News Bible may serve as a model for this verse. Another possible model is:

• Don’t worry when the time of trouble and misery comes. Other people will weep in sadness, but you will be happy and have everything you want.

Verses 26-27 may also be combined in this way:

• Don’t worry. None of your children, my servants, will be lost, because when the time [or, day] of trouble and misery comes, I will come looking for them. Other people will be weeping in sorrow, but you will be happy and have everything you want.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.