Well...I've been trying, slowly, to evolve my own translation of the DDJ, and decided the other day to base it on the Mawangdui text (because why not?), so have had to change a couple of things from the little amount I already had done.
For my own reasons, I've started not at the beginning, but with chapter 8.
There are some problems (of course). I shall embolden the differences from the received text, and highlight problematic bits in red, with discussion below. Feedback is welcome (feel free to comment on any of it).
上善若水 The highest good is like water.
水善利萬物而有靜 Water benefits all things and is serene,1
居眾人之所惡 Occupying places that men cannot abide;
故幾於道矣 In this way it is close to the Dao.
居善地 The goodness of a home depends on the earth,
心善淵 The goodness of a heart depends on its depth,
予善天 My goodness depends on the heavens,2
言善信 The goodness of one's word depends on trust,
正善治 Justice depends on good governance,3
事善能 A job well done depends on one’s ability,
動善時 The good of an action depends on timing;
夫唯不爭故無尤 When a man ceases to strive, he finds himself4
1. Instead of "does not strive", the MWD has 有静 -- "is serene/tranquil".
The Chinese seems to say something more than that, though: the character being made up of 青 vivid, and 争 struggle/pull, the original meaning was apparently to "think vividly and pull at truth". With these radicals, this version of serenity implies some kind of internal struggle, to me.
The English, I'm not so sure. "Serene“ and ”tranquil“ have no such roots.
2. 予善天: Comparing the MWD and received versions, 予 and 与 share the meaning "to give", but I've had difficulty understanding how giving relates to 天 the heavens. An alternate meaning of 予 is "me", which makes more sense in my head, though I can't say either version really makes sense to me in relation to heaven (仁 benevolence made so much more sense)
3. Justice? Governance? Government? Rule? etc?
4. "...he finds himself": I quite like this translation, though not literal. It seems nobody agrees on a translation: Giafu has "No fight: No blame" whilst Addiss has "Only do not contend, And you will not go wrong" -- neither is necessarily wrong, going by the various meanings of 尤 (blame/fault/outstanding/wrongdoing/especially), yet I'm not sure why we'd be talking about “blame", "fault", or "wrongdoing"...?
5. You'll notice that I've highlighted "goodness" in each line, as I'm still not sure of the best way to approach 善. I see much discussion on this in the posts above, and none of the translations I've seen so far really do it for me. These 3-character phrases are so vague, and a couple so abstract, it seems that the English should be equally vague, so that each person can come up with their own interpretation...
Oh, and here is the MWD text on Baidu
