The pride of the heavenly heights is the clear firmament, the appearance of heaven in a spectacle of glory: The firmament and heaven is the sky. These are poetic lines and their force lies in the impression made rather than in the exact meaning of the words.

Good News Translation creates a good equivalent, turning one statement into two exclamations: “How beautiful is the bright, clear sky above us! What a glorious sight it is!” Contemporary English Version, on the other hand, uses a single forceful statement:

• Nothing can compare
with the glorious sight
of the clear, blue sky.”

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.