Let your conversation be with men of understanding: Good News Translation says this well with “Engage in conversation with intelligent people.”

And let all your discussion be about the law of the Most High: The law of the Most High refers to Torah, the Law of Moses. The Most High has reference to God’s supreme majesty, not to his physical size or height (see the comments at 4.10). There is a saying that people with little minds talk about people, people with ordinary intelligence talk about events, and people with great minds talk about ideas. This is essentially the advice ben Sira is giving here. Talk about ideas, not just ideas even, but the greatest ideas of all—those in Scripture. Good News Translation follows Revised Standard Version in use of the verbal construction “let … be.” For those translators who find this construction difficult, another possible rendering for this line is “and when you get together, discuss the Law of the Most High.”

Conversation and discussion have the same meaning here, and translators may wish to combine and simplify the two lines as follows:

• Speak [or, Engage in conversation] with intelligent people about the Law of the Lord Most High [or, the Lord who is above everything].

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.