When a rich man totters, he is steadied by friends, but when a humble man falls, he is even pushed away by friends: There is good manuscript evidence for reading “poor” (Good News Translation) instead of humble here, and we recommend that translators adopt that reading, with Good News Translation. (No footnote is really necessary.) Ben Sira here is using totters and falls as metaphors for saying stupid things. Verses 21-23 all deal with the difference between the way the rich are treated when they speak and the way the poor are treated. Another possible model that keeps the metaphors here is:

• If a rich person loses his balance, his friends will steady him, but a poor person can fall flat on the ground and his friends will have nothing to do with him.

Contemporary English Version also has a helpful model:

• When the rich start to stumble
their friends lend a hand,
but let the poor fall down,
and their friends pretend
not to know them.

A model that does not keep the metaphors is:

• When a rich man says stupid things, his friends will support him. But when a poor man speaks stupidly, his friends pretend not to know him.

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.