12And you, mortal, say to your people: The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness when they sin.
The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as a form of “save” in English is translated in Shipibo-Conibo with a phrase that means literally “make to live,” which combines the meaning of “to rescue” and “to deliver from danger,” but also the concept of “to heal” or “restore to health.”
The Hebrew and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark” and likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.”
Loma: “leaving the road” (which “implies a definite standard, the transgression of which is sin”)
Navajo (Dinė): “that which is off to the side” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
Toraja-Sa’dan: kasalan, originally meaning “transgression of a religious or moral rule” and in the context of the Bible “transgression of God’s commandments” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21ff. )
Bariai: “bad behavior” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
Sandawe: “miss the mark” (like the original meaning of the Greek term) (source for this and above: Ursula Wiesemann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 36ff., 43)
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the DanishBibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
The Greek, Hebrew, and Latin terms that are translated in English mostly as “righteous” as an adjective or personified noun or “righteousness” (also as “upright(ness)” and “just(ice)”) are most commonly expressed with concept of “straightness,” though this may be expressed in a number of ways. (Click or tap here to see the details)
Following is a list of (back-) translations of various languages:
Paasaal: “white heart” (source: Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)
(San Mateo del Mar Huave: “completely good” (the translation does not imply sinless perfection)
Nuer: “way of right” (“there is a complex concept of “right” vs. ‘left’ in Nuer where ‘right’ indicates that which is masculine, strong, good, and moral, and ‘left’ denotes what is feminine, weak, and sinful (a strictly masculine viewpoint!) The ‘way of right’ is therefore righteousness, but of course women may also attain this way, for the opposition is more classificatory than descriptive.”) (This and all above from Bratcher / Nida except for Bilua: Carl Gross; Tiv: Rob Koops; Muna: René van den Berg)
Yatzachi Zapotec: “walk straight” (source for this and four previous: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22)
Makonde: “doing what God wants” (in a context of us doing) and “be good in God’s eyes” (in the context of being made righteous by God) (note that justify / justification is translated as “to be made good in the eyes of God.” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Aari: The Pauline word for “righteous” is generally rendered by “makes one without sin” in the Aari, sometimes “before God” is added for clarity. (Source: Loren Bliese)
Ekari: maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (the same word that is also used for “truth“; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
Guhu-Samane: pobi or “right” (also: “right (side),” “(legal) right,” “straightness,” “correction,” “south,” “possession,” “pertinence,” “kingdom,” “fame,” “information,” or “speech” — “According to [Guhu-Samane] thinking there is a common core of meaning among all these glosses. Even from an English point of view the first five can be seen to be closely related, simply because of their similarity in English. However, from that point the nuances of meaning are not so apparent. They relate in some such a fashion as this: As one faces the morning sun, south lies to the right hand (as north lies to the left); then at one’s right hand are his possessions and whatever pertains to him; thus, a rich man’s many possessions and scope of power and influence is his kingdom; so, the rich and other important people encounter fame; and all of this spreads as information and forms most of the framework of the people’s speech.”) (Source: Ernest Richert in Notes on Translation 1964, p. 11ff.)
German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999): Gerechtheit, a neologism to differentiate it from the commonly-used Gerechtigkeit which can mean “righteousness” but is more often used in modern German as “fairness” (Berger / Nord especially use Gerechtheit in Letter to the Romans) or Gerechtestun, also a neologism, meaning “righteous deeds” (especially in Letter to the Ephesians)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 33:12:
Kupsabiny: “So, Ezekiel, tell those Israelites: If a good person has sinned, that goodness will not save him. But if the sinner abandons his sin, he shall not meet with punishment. But if that good person misbehaves, he shall not remain.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘Man, tell your fellowmen that if a righteous man sins, his good works/deeds can- not -save him. And if a wicked man will-turn-away from his wicked deeds, he will- not -be-punished for what he had-done which are wicked.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Therefore, you human, say to your fellow Israelis, ‘If righteous people start to disobey me, their being righteous previously will not save them from being punished. And if wicked people turn away from their wicked behavior, they will not die because of the sins that they committed previously. And if righteous people start to sin, they will not be allowed to remain alive because of their formerly being righteous.’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
And you, son of man, say to your people: This clause is similar to the one that begins verse 10 (see the comments there). The repetition emphasizes the importance of this message from God to Ezekiel for the Israelites. Here the message is that good people will not be able to rely on their goodness if they later turn to sin, and the wickedness of evil people will not be held against them if they later turn back and do what is right.
The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses is literally “The righteousness of the righteous will not save him on the day of his transgression.” The Hebrew words for righteousness and righteous come from the same root. Righteous people are those who respect God and obey the rules of his covenant, and righteousness refers to the good things they do (see the comments on 3.20 and 18.20). Transgresses renders the same Hebrew word translated “transgressions” in verse 10 (see the comments there). Whatever good people have done will not deliver them when they sin. Contemporary English Version says “when good people start sinning, all the good they did in the past cannot save them from being punished,” and New Living Translation has “The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin.” Translators may also say “When the obedient people do the things God requires them to do, those things [or, that] will not save them if they begin to sin.”
And as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness: On the other hand, when evil people stop sinning, they will not be punished because of their evil. The Hebrew words for wickedness and wicked come from the same root. Wicked here is the opposite of righteous; these people do not respect God and deliberately break the rules of the covenant (see the comments on 3.19 and 18.20). The structure of this sentence places emphasis on the wickedness of the wicked; it reads literally “and [with respect to] the wickedness of the wicked, he [the wicked man] will not fall because of it on the day of his turning from his wickedness.” Each language has its own way of providing emphasis here, so once translators are sure they understand the correct meaning, they should look for the most natural way of rendering it into their language. One possible way is “But those evil things that the evil people do, if they stop doing them they will not cause their death.” New Living Translation has “nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins,” and New Century Version says “The evil of wicked people will not cause them to be punished if they stop doing it.”
And the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins is literally “and the righteous will not be able to live by it [his righteousness] on the day he sins.” This sentence repeats the same idea as the second sentence of the verse. Some translations omit it to avoid the repetition (so Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation), but it is better to keep it, despite the repetition. It may be rendered “And in the same way, the people who used to obey God, God will not save them when they commit sin” or “It is like that also for people who used to obey God. If they start to sin, God will not save them.” The Hebrew verb for sins comes from the same root as the noun for “sins” in verse 10 (see the comments there).
Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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