Do not exchange a friend for money …: This is of course not referring to selling a friend, but to giving up a friend to gain something you think more valuable. Money is not necessarily involved; the Greek word here refers to “advantage [or, profit],” which may well be money, but not necessarily. It is hard to conceive of a situation where someone would give up a friend for some advantage without it being a betrayal, so Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version say “Don’t betray a friend for money.”

Or a real brother for the gold of Ophir: A real brother does not refer to kinship, but to deep friendship; in other words, “a real [or, true] friend.” Ophir was a place known as a source of fine gold; its exact location is unknown. To the Israelite it had an exotic, mysterious sound. Good News Translation chooses to represent the sense of the reference rather than the name itself by rendering the gold of Ophir as “all the gold in the world.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Do not give up a friend in exchange for anything. A real friend is worth more than all the gold in the world.

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.