And as you allow a bird to escape from your hand, so you have let your neighbor go, and will not catch him again: Good News Translation moves so you have let your neighbor go to the beginning of the sentence, and translates “Your friend is gone.” The shortness of this sentence makes it sound appropriately final, but it misses the idea that your friend is gone because of your action. Perhaps a better rendering is “You have lost a friend [permanently].” An alternative model for the whole verse is:

• If you hold a bird in your hand and let it go, it will fly away and never come back. In the same way you have lost your friend; you will never win him back.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.