For their hasty judgment has led many astray: Translators do not need to translate the connector For since this verse begins a new statement. It is not connected to the previous verse. Hasty judgment translates one Greek word, which has been translated by others in the following interesting ways: “opinions” (Good News Translation), “speculations” (New English Bible), “theorizing” (Revised English Bible), and “imagination” (An American Translation). All of these renderings are close to the meaning of the Greek noun. We prefer something like “speculations” or “imaginations.” Notice that Good News Translation reorders the elements of this clause to a more understandable form. It could be expressed in the present tense as “Many people are misled by their own speculations.” In the active voice this could be expressed as “Many people allow their imaginations to cause them to stop following the Lord.”

And wrong opinion has caused their thoughts to slip: Revised Standard Version provides a literal translation here. The idea of thoughts slipping is foreign to English. Good News Translation does better with “their wrong ideas have warped their judgment.” New Revised Standard Version is similar with “and wrong opinion has impaired their judgment.” This might be slightly better as “and their mistaken ideas warp [or, distort] their judgment.”

Some manuscripts add verse 25. It should be included in a footnote at the end of verse 24 (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation).

If you have no eyes you will be without light is literally “Not having pupils you will be deprived of light.” Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation sound rather odd. Everyone has eyes. Some people’s eyes, however, do not work. Some blind people appear to have no pupils, and this is probably what the author was thinking of in using the word “pupils.” Closer to the meaning of this line is “If your eyes do not function, you cannot see the light.”

If you lack knowledge do not profess to have it: This line follows from the previous one, which only stated the obvious. Here a parallel is drawn, which may not be as obvious. Everyone knows that if you do not have the ability to see, you cannot have vision, and you cannot pretend to. You can lack knowledge, however, and try to fool people. Don’t do it, says the writer. Good News Translation has “don’t claim to have knowledge if you don’t have it.”

Translating verse 25 from the Greek text as suggested above will satisfy most translators. There is more to this, however. The Hebrew text of Sirach contains a version of this, which is translated by Good News Translation in its footnote. As Good News Translation explains there, in the Hebrew these lines appear after the material numbered verses 26-27 in our text. The Hebrew is also a bit simpler than the Greek; see Good News Translation, which has “If you have no eyes, you cannot see; if you have no knowledge, you cannot have Wisdom.” Although Revised Standard Version, along with most versions, chose to omit verse 25, New Revised Standard Version has placed 25 in the text, but translates the Hebrew form, and does so literally as follows:

Without eyes there is no light;
without knowledge there is no wisdom.

However, note that in Hebrew the word rendered “eyes” is literally “pupils.”

The simplest procedure here, again, is to deal with this verse as Revised Standard Version has done. The added note in Good News Translation about the Hebrew reading is unnecessary. However, some translators may wish to include this verse in the text. If so, we recommend following New Revised Standard Version in using the Hebrew form quoted in the last paragraph, and numbering it 25.

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.