Verses 30-33 have described what the priests do. From verse 34 to verse 40a, the subject once again is the idols. This is a good place for a paragraph break.

Whether one does evil to them or good, they will not be able to repay it: Good News Translation expresses this as “It doesn’t matter whether a person helps or harms these gods, since they cannot pay him back.” This is what the Greek says, but it is a bit awkward to translate, since it seems to allow the possibility that people can help or harm these gods. In trying to move away from this, translators can go in either of two directions: thinking of the gods as deities or as physical objects. If we think of them as deities, we could say something like “It doesn’t matter whether a person treats these gods with respect or disrespect….” Thinking of them as physical objects, we might say “It doesn’t matter whether a person takes good care of these images or damages them….” The text does not favor either “gods” or “images.” In fact, in Greek the subject is “they”: “Whether they suffer ill from someone or good, they will not be able to repay.” Repay can be appropriately rendered by two verbs corresponding to the bad/good choice in the first clause: “It doesn’t matter whether … since they cannot punish or reward.” The whole sentence can be restructured along this line: “If you show disrespect to the god [or, damage the idol], it cannot punish you; if you show it respect [or, take good care of it], it cannot reward you.”

They cannot set up a king or depose one: Depose one means “take away a king’s power” (Contemporary English Version). These gods cannot bring a king to power or remove him from it. Good News Translation joins this sentence with the first one of the next verse, which gives a good flow of thought.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.