A wise man will not hate the law: Good News Translation restructures the thought here, but the idea is the same. It interprets hate as “has no use for.” The verb hate is not quite appropriate with the law as the object. Someone may have no use for it, despise it, scorn it, consider it irrelevant, but hate is not quite the right word. We would be better to say “People who are wise do not have contempt for the Law,” or positively, “People who are wise love the Lord’s Law.” The law here and throughout this context is, of course, the Lord’s Law.

But he who is hypocritical about it is like a boat in a storm may be rendered “But anyone who does not take the Law seriously will be tossed around like….” Compare 32.15. Good News Translation adds “tossed about” to indicate just how the “insincere” person is like a boat in a storm. Without God’s Law to steady him, he is not on solid ground.

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.