These verses expand the contrast in verse 12, but in the opposite order. Notice, by comparison with Revised Standard Version, how Good News Translation changes the structure of verse 13. This is in order to bring child closer to drink milk. In the Greek, “for he is a child” is emphasized by being placed in a clause of its own at the end of the sentence.

Has to drink milk implies what Revised Standard Version‘s “lives on milk” states explicitly, that the readers cannot “digest” solid food, and so take nothing but milk. Anyone who has to drink milk may be expressed as “Anyone who can only drink milk” or “Anyone who can consume only milk.” It is important in using a term for drink to make certain that this agrees with a term such as milk. In some languages, for example, one “eats milk” but “drinks water.”

In determining an appropriate word for child it is necessary to use an expression which refers to an individual before the age of weaning. Some translations state that the child is still unweaned, that is, is still a baby (Bijbel in Gewone Taal, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Moffatt “a mere babe”; Translator’s New Testament “infant”; compare Knox; Barclay, Jerusalem Bible “baby”). Many languages make an important distinction in age-grading between persons who are still unweaned and those who have been weaned, though in some societies complete weaning may not occur until a child is two or three years of age.

It is difficult to be sure of the exact meaning of the phrase which Revised Standard Version translates “the word of righteousness,” and Good News Translation the matter of right and wrong. For “word,” common language translations generally agree with Good News Bible in choosing a general translation, matter; Bible de Jérusalem has the more specific “teaching,” and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “reasoning.” Knox and Translator’s New Testament (see Translator’s New Testament Glossary) speak of a particular “message” or “account.” For “righteousness,” common language translations, New English Bible, and some other translations suggest a general, moral meaning such as right and wrong; compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch second edition “the language of adults.” Jerusalem Bible, Translator’s New Testament, and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible agree with Revised Standard Version in using religious words like “righteousness” and “righteous”; Knox and New American Bible suggest this quality more strongly by choosing terms related to holiness.

This section does not speak in detail about special Christian teaching, so the context favors a general meaning such as Good News Translation‘s the matter of right and wrong. An expanded translation or paraphrase of verses 13-14 might read as follows:

• 13 Anyone who lives on milk is a baby who does not know by experience what is right. 14 But mature people, on the other hand, can take solid food, because they have learned by practice and training to be sensitive to the difference between good and evil.

Without any experience in the matter of right and wrong might wrongly suggest that a small child has never done anything which is either right or wrong. Verses 13 and 14 obviously emphasize the recognition or knowledge of what is right or wrong. It may be appropriate to translate without any experience in the matter of right and wrong as “without being able to know the difference between right and wrong” or “without having learned, as yet, what the difference is between what is right and what is wrong.”

Verse 14 completes the contrast; see Revised Standard Version “But”; Bible en français courant “On the contrary.”

Solid food, on the other hand, is for adults may be expressed as “but in contrast with what happens to children, solid food is for those who are grown up” or “… for those who are already men and women.”

Good News Translation fourth edition, adults, who through practice…, smooths and simplifies the rather heavy translation of the first three editions: adults, who have trained and used their tastes to know the difference between good and evil, but the metaphor of athletic training is weakened. The Greek word for practice involves physical or mental fitness, for example, in Sirach 30.14, where it means that a person is “in good condition.” The rare word which Revised Standard Version translates “faculties” does not refer only to intellectual powers; in the Septuagint of Jeremiah 4.19 it includes emotional awareness.

There are certain dangers involved in a literal translation of who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil, for this might be misunderstood to mean that only those who have done both good and evil would know the difference between good and evil. In other words, an individual must learn how to sin in order to know what sin is. Through practice might better be expressed in some languages as “by constantly using their minds,” “by repeatedly thinking in their hearts,” or “by carefully and repeatedly considering in their hearts.”

Distinguish means “make the right use of one’s powers or faculties” (so Moffatt, New American Bible, Barclay; New English Bible, Translator’s New Testament “perceptions”). Simpler words would be “senses” (Bijbel in Gewone Taal, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), “moral sense” (Bible de Jérusalem), and “minds” (Jerusalem Bible). In this context there does not seem any reason to see in the passive verb translated “trained” (Revised Standard Version) an implied reference to the activity of God.

To distinguish between good and evil may be rendered as “to tell the difference between what is good and what is evil” or “to decide in one’s heart that this is good and that is bad.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .