The essentials for life are water and bread and clothing and a house to cover one’s nakedness: In this verse ben Sira is talking about the bare minimum we need. Compare this with 39.26, where he will expand the list of necessities to include some luxuries. The essentials for life may be rendered “The necessities of life” (Good News Translation) or “Life’s most important things” (Contemporary English Version). Bread can often refer broadly to food in general (so Good News Translation), but in many cultures the words for other staple foods will be used; for example, “rice,” “taro,” “breadfruit,” and so on. To cover one’s nakedness is literally “covering indecency” (similar phrase in 26.8), which would ordinarily be taken with clothing rather than a house, but here it grammatically goes with a house—technically, but not necessarily. Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, and other versions interpret this to refer to the “privacy” that a house provides. This is not completely satisfying. Translators may follow Good News Translation with good conscience, but we suggest taking a small liberty with the grammar and rearranging the order of the verse as follows:

• Life’s most important things are water, food, shelter [or, a house], and enough clothing to cover your body decently.

Luís Alonso Schökel has a similar approach.

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.