Do not travel on the road with a foolhardy fellow, lest he be burdensome to you: It is not quite clear just how the reckless traveling companion will endanger you. Perhaps ben Sira was thinking of some horse-drawn vehicle with a reckless driver. But not necessarily. Traveling on horseback or on foot was dangerous business in those days, and keeping company with someone inclined to take risks made it more so. One might travel with insufficient supplies of food and water, one might take “short cuts” that led into dangerous country, one might expose oneself unnecessarily to robbers. The foolhardy fellow is someone inclined to take risks such as those. The word used in the Hebrew text here is usually rendered “cruel person,” which links better with “wrathful man” in the next verse. Lest he be burdensome to you is rendered “It will cause you nothing but trouble” by Good News Translation. The Good News Translation rendering is perhaps a bit of an overstatement compared to the Greek, but only a bit, and ben Sira would certainly agree with its literal sense. “Nothing but trouble” happens to be a common English idiom. Since the final line of the verse mentions the possibility of death, we may also translate “It can be very dangerous for you.”

For he will act as he pleases, and through his folly you will perish with him: This means that the reckless companion will do as he likes, and what he does may well be foolish enough to cause death, and since you are traveling with him, you will die along with him. Good News Translation moves the idea of folly into the first half of this sentence by beginning with “He will do any foolish thing he pleases,” making the conclusion “you will die with him” more threatening by its isolation.

Contemporary English Version reorders the clauses in the verse as follows:

• Don’t travel with those
who like danger.
They will do what they please
and cause you problems,
and their foolishness
might get you killed.

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.