And a sinful man will disturb friends and inject enmity among those who are at peace: This does not mean that the sinful man has the purpose of disturbing friendships; rather, the disturbance is the result of his sin. Good News Translation expresses this as “It is sinful to” do so. The friends here are not the friends of the sinner; they are other people whose friendship is disrupted by the sinner’s intrusion. The two lines of this verse contain parallel elements: disturb and inject enmity, friends and those who are at peace. Good News Translation expresses these parallelisms as follows: “to break up a friendship by creating hostility among people who get along well together.” However, in some languages the whole verse may be rendered in this way:

• It is sinful for you to cause people who are friends to start hating each other.

All the elements of meaning are there.

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.