Accept whatever is brought upon you: Good News Translation expresses this very simply with “Accept whatever happens to you” (similarly Contemporary English Version “… everything that happens”).

And in changes that humble you be patient: The problem here is that the Greek word translated changes does not mean that. It is very close to a word that does mean that, and translations take it in this sense: reverses in one’s fortunes. However, the word actually used here refers to something that is given in exchange for something else, a “price.” In the Greek Old Testament the word is used ten other times, and in every case it refers to a price paid or something exchanged for something else. (The references are Lev 27.10, 33; Deut 23.18; 2 Sam 24.24; 1 Kgs 10.28; 21.2; Job 28.17; Isa 43.3; Lam 5.4; Amos 5.12.) If we take the word here in the sense it has elsewhere, we can translate this line literally as “and be patient in the prices of your humiliation.” Some manuscripts read “price” as singular. The Handbook suggests that the meaning is “and be patient even when it costs you your pride [or, when you have to swallow your pride / when you have to pay the price of humiliation].” Admittedly, this is not far from what Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation do say, and those who cannot or do not wish to work with the idea of a price paid may use Good News Translation as a good model. It is better than Revised Standard Version. The idea of this line will be developed further in the next verse, where the noun “humiliation” will appear again. In languages that do not have the passive voice, we may say “and be patient when others humiliate 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.