Before his time there never were such beautiful things: Either Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation may be used as a model here. Or we could say “Before Aaron’s time such beautiful objects never existed.”

No outsider ever put them on, but only his sons and his descendants perpetually: The outsider was anyone who was not a legitimate priest, a descendant of Aaron. Good News Translation expresses these lines concisely.

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.