A friend will not be known in prosperity: This means exactly what Good News Translation says with “When things are going well, it is hard to tell who your real friends are.” Revised Standard Version attaches a textual footnote. Most Greek manuscripts read “A friend will not be punished in prosperity,” which is obscure at best. The Handbook suggests that this be ignored. The Hebrew agrees with the manuscripts reading known. Another way to render this line is “When you are prospering [or, are successful], it is hard to tell who your real friends are.”

Nor will an enemy be hidden in adversity: This line is closely parallel to the first one as follows: friend/enemy, known/hidden, prosperity/adversity. Preserving this balancing of words is not as important as expressing clearly the contrasting thoughts in the two lines. It takes adversity (Good News Translation “hard times”) to show who your real friends are. As long as things are going well, it’s hard to tell. But when hard times come along, it is pretty obvious who your enemies, or false friends, are. This line may also be rendered “When you have hard times [or, are not prospering], you will discover who are your real enemies [or, who really hate 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.