Do not give yourself to harlots means not to be sexually obsessed with prostitutes, or as Contemporary English Version puts it, “Don’t let yourself be controlled by a desire for prostitutes.”

Lest you lose your inheritance does not refer to being cut out of a will, being deprived of what a relative might leave you when he or she dies, but to losing what you already have. “You may lose everything you own” (Good News Translation) says it well. Compare Pro 5.10; 29.3.

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.