Pragmatic wrote:
What I was trying to do was to make "same" describe the persons rather than their deeds, since this is the way it is expressed in Arabic. Perhaps a different order of the words is needed in English to convey that meaning without sounding funny. Something like
{13:10} Those among you who say something in private or in public are the same [to God], and so are those who try to hide by night or be conspicuous by day.
Interesting angle. Your suggested translation would be very good if the sameness is meant for the people and not their actions. Honestly, I don't see that it's the people who are meant by the verse. The principle stated in the verse is that people cannot hope to escape the consequences of what they say by saying it in private, neither can they escape the consequences of their actions by trying to hide under the cover of night. God sees and hears them anyway.
If you agree that the verse means that, then we need to convey that meaning in English while remaining as close as possible to the Arabic words and sentence structure.