The Work of Waiting in Ruth's Choice

What I read

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

Reading the non-canonical material alongside this shows how wide the shared vocabulary of the period really was. Looking only at what was eventually collected hides that width entirely.

（ミカ書 第7章）

What I read

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.（トビト記 10:13）

17ペオルで犯した罪で、なお足りないとするのか。それがために主の会衆に災が下ったが、われわれは今日もなお、その罪から清められていない。

18しかもあなたがたは、今日、ひるがえって主に従うことをやめようとするのか。あなたがたが、きょう、主にそむくならば、あす、主はイスラエルの全会衆にむかって怒られるであろう。

19もしあなたがたの所有の地が清くないのであれば、主の幕屋の立っている主の所有の地に渡ってきて、われわれのうちに、所有の地を獲なさい。ただ、われわれの神、主の祭壇のほかに、自分のために祭壇を築いて、主にそむき、またわれわれをそむく者とならせないでください。

20ゼラの子アカンは、のろわれた物について、とがを犯し、それがためイスラエルの全会衆に、怒りが臨んだではないか。またその罪によって滅びた者は、彼ひとりではなかった』」。

ヨシュア記 22:17-20（口語訳（日本語））

Following the context

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.（マカバイ記三 7:21-23）

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

How you render this one word determines the meaning of the whole paragraph. A translator has to decide, and the decision is already an interpretation. Readers deserve to know that a decision was made.

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.（アモス書 3:12-15）

10斧がすでに木の根もとに置かれている。だから、良い実を結ばない木はことごとく切られて、火の中に投げ込まれるのだ。

マタイによる福音書 3:10（口語訳（日本語））

How you render this one word determines the meaning of the whole paragraph. A translator has to decide, and the decision is already an interpretation. Readers deserve to know that a decision was made.（マカバイ記二 5:23）

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.

A short detour. There is a passage elsewhere with the same shape though no direct connection, and setting them next to each other makes the writers' different concerns visible.

How you render this one word determines the meaning of the whole paragraph. A translator has to decide, and the decision is already an interpretation. Readers deserve to know that a decision was made.

Following the context

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.（ヨハネの第一の手紙 3:4）

Another way to read it

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

コロサイ人への手紙 1:13（KJV（英語））