While you are still alive and have breath in you, do not let any one take your place: The two clauses in the first line are repetitive, but emphatic. A translator may find two equivalent clauses, or combine them into one emphatic expression, as Good News Translation has tried to do. Do not let any one take your place means, as Good News Translation has it, “don’t let anyone lead your life for you.” For the whole verse we could say:

• As long as you are alive, don’t allow anyone to make decisions for you that affect your life.

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.