For the Most High also hates sinners: The word also here is tricky; it is ambiguous and misleading. Good News Translation has the whole line right with “The Most High himself hates sinners.” The author is saying that people should not be generous to sinners, because God himself hates sinners. Good News Translation has no equivalent for the conjunction For. This conjunction is a little unnatural here in English. “After all” would be a good way of establishing the connection of this verse with verse 5: “After all, the Most High himself hates sinners….”

And will inflict punishment on the ungodly: The ungodly and sinners are the same group of people. Good News Translation combines them in “sinners” and refers back to them with the pronoun “them.” Good News Translation‘s translation says everything the Greek says.

The Revised Standard Version footnote observes that some ancient manuscripts add the following line: “and he is keeping them for the mighty day of their punishment” (similarly New Revised Standard Version). This line is not well attested. Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version ignore it, and the Handbook suggests that translators follow them. For translators who may wish to include it, however, the following may serve as models: “He is patient with them now, but their punishment will be terrible when it comes” and “… but when he punishes them they will suffer terribly.”

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.