Do not bring every man into your home: Good News Translation “person” and Contemporary English Version “anyone” are closer to the Greek than man. While Do not bring is literal and clear, normally we bring people into our home by inviting them in; this is where Good News Translation puts the focus. The translation must not sound like every man is to be taken literally, as if ben Sira is telling us not to invite everyone in the world home with us. He is telling us to be cautious and selective about inviting people home with us. So Good News Translation reads “Be careful about the kind of person you invite into your home,” or we may translate “Don’t invite just anyone into….”

For many are the wiles of the crafty: Wiles are tricks, ways of deceiving people. Good News Translation expresses the idea in a verb by rendering the wiles of the crafty as “clever people can fool you.” The Greek word translated crafty describes people who are not only “clever” (Good News Translation), but clever in a bad sense, tricky and deceptive. Contemporary English Version expresses that idea by rendering the whole line as “Dishonest people will trick you.”

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.