There is a gift that profits you nothing, and there is a gift that brings a double return: This verse can be understood in two very different ways. If the gift is something given to you (so New Revised Standard Version, New American Bible), the meaning is that some gifts don’t really bring you anything, and some gifts will have to be repaid double. This would seem to be saying that gifts are no good to the recipient. Maybe so, but it seems a strange thing to say. Most scholars interpret the gift as something you give to someone else. In this case Good News Translation expresses the meaning well. The Handbook strongly recommends this interpretation. Other possible models for this verse are:

• Sometimes when you give something to another person it doesn’t bring any return, but at other times you will receive twice what the gift is worth.

• Sometimes we don’t gain anything when we make a gift, but sometimes we receive back twice as much as we gave.

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.