So is translated “And Jesus concluded” by Good News Translation. All translations indicate a shift in speaker by closing the quotation at the end of verse 15, and some translations try to help further by introducing a new paragraph with verse 16. However, this solution is of no assistance to persons who must depend upon hearing the Scripture read, and its value is questionable even for those who read the Scripture for themselves. A number of CLTs follow Good News Translation in introducing Jesus as the speaker.

The last translates a masculine plural form in Greek. It may be necessary, not only to mark this as a specific reference to people, but to indicate the time periods: “So those people who are last now will someday be first….” As in 19.30, to which this verse refers, last and first do not refer to time but to rank. Translators can use the same expressions here as they did there, possibly “least important” and “most important.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .