For a wound may be bandaged, and there is reconciliation after abuse: If you wound someone with a knife, the wound can be bandaged and heal. If you abuse (“insult”) someone, the person may be willing to forgive you and restore the friendship. An alternative model for this line is “If you wound someone, he can bandage the wound and it will heal, and if you insult someone, the two of you can still be reconciled.”

But whoever has betrayed secrets is without hope: But the one thing that destroys a friendship beyond repair is a breach of trust. Once a person shows that he cannot be trusted, there is no way a person can put faith in him again. He can never again be “a friend to his soul” (verse 16). The Greek literally says that the person who has betrayed someone’s confidence is without hope. Good News Translation says “it is hopeless,” referring to the situation created by the betrayed confidence. Contemporary English Version continues the idea of “healing” by rendering the whole line as “but nothing can heal the harm of telling someone’s secret.” But we may also translate “but if you tell others a secret that a friend has shared with you, he [your friend] will never trust you again.” Compare 22.19-22.

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.