Like music in mourning is a tale told at the wrong time: Compare Pro 25.20. Good News Translation interprets a tale to mean “Lecturing your children,” that is, talking to them about misbehavior. This can be “as out of place [at the wrong time] as singing to people in mourning” (Good News Translation). It is reasonable to take tale to mean talking to your children since the next line speaks of corporal punishment as a better option. However, Good News Translation may miss the point of the comparison in this line. A better rendering is “Lecturing [or, Talking to] your children sometimes does no more good than music [does] for people in mourning.” People who have lost a loved one will not be cheered up by music, and stubborn children are not going to be set straight by talking to them. The Greek simply says music; it does not specify singing or playing on an instrument.

But chastising and discipline are wisdom at all times: Chastising refers to physical punishment, “whipping” (Good News Translation), or “thrashing” (New Jerusalem Bible). Here, discipline or “correction” (New Jerusalem Bible) may well refer to the same thing. Good News Translation‘s restructuring of this line is effective: “but a whipping is a wise choice of discipline at any time.” However, another possible restructuring is “but if you whip your children, that is always the wise way to correct them.”

New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, La Bible Pléiade, and Luís Alonso Schökel add two verses after verse 6 in a footnote and number them as verses 7 and 8. These two additional verses are found in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation at the end of verse 8, and are numbered there as verses 9 and 10. These two verses should be included in a footnote at the end of verse 6 and numbered verses 7 and 8. We are violating our usual practice of following Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation
because these two verses clearly belong in this section and not in the next one.

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.