His fear is confined to the eyes of men is literally “And eyes of men [are] his fear.” This means that the man is not concerned about God seeing his adultery; he just doesn’t want some person to catch him at it. It is not that he is “afraid of other people” (Good News Translation), but afraid that other people will see him. So Contemporary English Version is helpful here with “People like that are only afraid of being seen by others.” There is a contrast in this verse between the eyes of men and the eyes of the Lord in the next line. It would be good in translation to keep this contrast by using the word eyes in both lines. This proves difficult in natural English, and Good News Translation does not try. There may be a way to do so; see the model in the next paragraph.
And he does not realize that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun: The connector “but” is more appropriate than and. What the writer means here is clear, although his comparison is not precise. Eyes are not bright in the sense that the sun is bright; eyes do not give off light. The intent of the author is so obvious that there may be no problem, and Good News Translation is not worried about it. Solving the problem may involve being a bit wordy, but we may be able to make the connection with eyes of men in the first line by rendering the first three lines of this verse as follows: “He is only afraid that some person will see him, but he doesn’t realize the Lord can see things that the light of 10,000 [or, a great number of] suns could not reveal.”
They look upon all the ways of men, and perceive even the hidden places: For they look upon all the ways of men, New English Bible has “observing every step men take.” Good News Translation is good with “he sees everything we do.” Another approach to these last two lines of the verse is “The Lord sees [or, knows] every step we take; he can see into the darkest places.”
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.