The Pledge and Law in Spanish and Portuguese

Anyone who has camped next to a club from another country knows the moment: when it's time for the ideals, each group recites in its own language, and the pledge you know by heart sounds different coming from the next campsite. This guide brings together the Pathfinder Pledge and Law in Spanish and in Portuguese, checked against the pages of the General Conference, the North American Division and the South American Division (SAD), side by side with the English, and shows where each translation departs from the letter.

🌎What are the Pathfinder Pledge and Law in Spanish and Portuguese?

In Spanish, the movement is called Conquistadores and a Pathfinder is a Conquistador; in Brazilian Portuguese, Pathfinders are Desbravadores. In both languages the Pledge is the Voto, and reading it back as “vote” would be a false friend, since an English vote is the one you cast in an election. The story behind each name is in our article on the origin of the name Pathfinders in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

In this guide, the reference for Portuguese and Spanish is the SAD, which runs the official Pathfinder portal at adventistas.org in both languages. For English, it is the General Conference, the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The meaning of each phrase is explained in our article on the Pathfinder Pledge.

Texts checked on the official pages on October 6, 2026; on the General Conference page, the English Pledge is laid out in five lines.

📜What is the Pathfinder Law in Spanish and Portuguese, item by item?

In all three languages, the Law has eight items, in the same order. The opening line is what changes: “A lei do Desbravador ordena-me”, “La Ley del Conquistador me ordena” and “The Pathfinder Law is for me to”. The Portuguese and Spanish openings say, roughly, “the Pathfinder Law commands me”. Each item is explained in the Pathfinder Law explained item by item.

The North American Division publishes the same list in English, with small differences in punctuation and spelling.

Ideals pages of the SAD (Portuguese and Spanish) and of the General Conference, checked on October 6, 2026.

🔍Why doesn't the Brazilian version translate the English word for word?

The official pages we consulted don't say who translated the Law into Portuguese, or when. The comparison suggests a choice: in a text that children and teenagers recite in chorus, the Brazilian version swapped the English idioms for natural Portuguese equivalents.

Keep a level eye is the most curious case. A word-for-word Portuguese rendering would be “manter o olhar nivelado”, the steady gaze of someone who looks others in the eye because they have nothing to hide. It became “Manter a consciência limpa” (keep a clean conscience), and the idea survived in the official explanation: the North American Division says “I will not lie, cheat or deceive”; the SAD says “Não mentirei, roubarei ou enganarei”. The middle verb changed: cheat turned into steal, roubar in Portuguese and robar in the SAD's Spanish.

Walk softly in the sanctuary would be “andar de mansinho no santuário” in plain Portuguese, tiptoeing; the English explanation talks about being quiet, careful and reverent. Go on God’s errands pictures running errands for God, like a child a mother sends to the bakery, and the idea of being sent stayed in “Ir aonde Deus mandar” (go wherever God sends). In the Pledge, true became “leal” (loyal), and a friend to man, where man means humanity, became “amigo de todos” (a friend to all).

Word-for-word renderings by the Desbravai editorial team, for comparison only. The official Portuguese text is the SAD's.

🤝“Friend to man”, “friend of man” or “amigo de todos”: which is right?

It depends on which official page you open. The General Conference and the North American Division publish “a friend to man”. The SAD's ideals page, however, has a trivia box with a “Voto (original em inglês)”, the Pledge in its original English, that ends with “I will be a friend of man” and splits the qualities into three sentences: “I will be pure. I will be kind. I will be true.” The page doesn't say where that transcription came from.

Among the versions that use friend to man, only the punctuation changes: “pure and kind and true” at the General Conference, “pure, and kind, and true” at the North American Division. In the North American Division's official explanation, the phrase means living to bless others and treating them as you would like to be treated, the golden rule of Matthew 7:12.

🗺️Is the Pathfinder Pledge and Law the same in every Spanish-speaking country?

No. There are at least two official Spanish wordings. The SAD's, at adventistas.org/es, ends the Pledge with “amigo de todos”, like the Portuguese. The North American Division, which also has Spanish-speaking clubs, published the training manual Instructor del Club de Conquistadores in 2021 with a different wording: its Pledge ends with “amigo de la humanidad” (a friend of humanity), closer to the English.

In the North American Spanish Law, four items change, and “Tener una mirada franca” (keep a frank gaze) renders Keep a level eye almost word for word. Even the explanation of item 4 follows the English: instead of robar (to steal), it uses hacer trampa (to cheat), the original cheat.

For the Inter-American Division, which includes countries such as Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, we found no official publication with the full text. If your club is hosting visitors from there, ask which version they use; your Conference or Mission can help you get in touch.

SAD: “Ideales de los Conquistadores” page (adventistas.org/es). North American Division: “Instructor del Club de Conquistadores”, Club Ministries, 2021, p. 11.

🏷️How do you say Pathfinder, Aim and Motto in Spanish and Portuguese?

The General Conference publishes four texts for Pathfinders: the Aim (Alvo in Portuguese), the Motto (Lema), the Pledge (Voto) and the Law (Lei). The Aim is “The Advent Message to all the world in my generation”; in the SAD's Spanish it is called the Blanco: “El mensaje del advenimiento a todo el mundo de mi generación”.

The English Motto, “The love of Christ compels us”, is in the plural and repeats 2 Corinthians 5:14 in the New King James Version: “For the love of Christ compels us”. The SAD uses the singular: “O amor de Cristo me motiva” and “El amor de Cristo me motiva” (the love of Christ motivates me).

The list varies even within the SAD: the Portuguese page has six ideals, without the Purpose, while the Spanish page adds the Purpose and the Legión de Honor of the Adventist Youth (see Pathfinder Objective and Purpose). The Pathfinder Pledge to the Bible, Voto de Fidelidade à Bíblia in Portuguese, is called the Promesa de Fidelidad a la Biblia in Spanish.

Names from the ideals pages of the SAD (Portuguese and Spanish) and of the General Conference; “Club de Conquistadores” appears in the North American Division's Spanish material.

🏕️How can a club use the Pledge and Law in three languages at a camporee?

The next North American Division International Camporee runs August 20 to 26, 2029, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (see our guide to the International Camporee 2029 in Oshkosh). At a camp with clubs from many countries, recognizing the Voto and the Ley helps you follow what the tent next door is reciting.

Border-area clubs and clubs that host exchanges can make a poster with the columns of the Law table. For a joint recitation, ask the organizers ahead of time whether each group uses its own language or everyone follows a single version.

In a Spanish or Portuguese class, the unit gets the eight items in that language, each pair translates them word for word, and everyone compares the result with the official English. At club meetings and ceremonies in Brazil, such as Investiture, the reference remains the SAD's Portuguese text.