You shall purge … from your midst: see 13.5, and especially 19.13. However, the reference in these two passages is to purging the land of a killer by executing him. Since the killer is not known in this case, the people purge their guilt by doing what Yahweh requires, namely killing a young cow. So the translation may be “Yahweh will not hold you responsible for the murder of this person.”

You do what is right: here, what is right is what God tells them to do. The Septuagint has the compound phrase “good and proper,” which is what the Hebrew text in 6.18 has.

In the sight of the LORD: this goes with what is right, not with when you do. This is what Yahweh considers the right thing to do.

In many languages it will be better to place the second clause at the beginning, as Good News Translation has done.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .