When an ungodly man curses his adversary, he curses his own soul: For curses see the comments on 3.9. The problem in this verse is that the Greek word translated adversary could be rendered “Satan,” as the footnotes in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation indicate In our opinion that is how it should be translated. Surely ben Sira’s grandson (who translated the book into Greek) understood it that way; otherwise he would have used here a Greek noun for “enemy” rather than a form of the Hebrew word satan. What ben Sira seems to be saying is that we cannot put the blame for our sin on Satan; Satan is just an excuse that ungodly people have for not blaming themselves. We suggest the following model for this verse:

• When a wicked person curses Satan, he is doing nothing more than cursing himself.

Perhaps a better model is:

• When a wicked person tries to put blame on Satan, he is really blaming no one but himself.

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.