How do we translate the Scriptures into Toba? Sometimes there are different ways to interpret the original text due to an ambiguity. In Toba, we often have to choose just one interpretation, as the ambiguity cannot be reproduced...

The Greek text of this verse says (with literal translation word for word):

The New International Version translates it as follows:

The problem in this verse is what does “grace on top of grace” mean. The NEB retains the ambiguity by translating “grace upon grace”. But most translations take it to mean, as the NIV has done, “one blessing after another”.

However, there is another possibility, as suggested in the notes of the Jerusalem Bible: the text may in fact mean that the grace of God revealed in the new covenant in Christ Jesus has now replaced God's grace as expressed in the old covenant at Mt. Sinai. And looking at the next verse in the passage, this seems to make good sense in the context.

In Toba it would be very difficult to retain the ambiguity, and so we had to choose one of the two options. José, who translated John’s Gospel, was happy to follow the alternative interpretation, and so this is how we translated the verse into Toba:

Which means: “Therefore coming out of his own great willingness to give, now all of us already receive mercy which is new, superior to what there was originally.”