Do not reject an afflicted suppliant: An afflicted suppliant is a very needy person who asks for something; the Greek noun for suppliant implies that the person comes asking for something, that the person seeks the aid or support of someone. Good News Translation is not wrong with “Don’t refuse to help a beggar who is in distress,” but a rendering closer to the meaning is “Do not refuse a distressed person who comes to you for help [or, who asks you for help],” or even “When a person who is in great need comes to ask you for help, do not refuse to help him.”
Nor turn your face away from the poor: Turn your face away from means to refuse to have anything to do with someone. Good News Translation has expressed it by another figure of speech: “turn your back on.”
Do not avert your eye from the needy: This means the same thing as the previous line. Good News Translation has combined the two lines (as well as the numbering of verses 4-5). This is a possible model. However, another approach would be to repeat the translation of the last line of verse 4, with a word like “No” before it, to stress the point made here; for example, “No, you should not turn your back on needy people.” Another possible translation is “If you pretend not to notice poor people” (similarly Contemporary English Version).
Nor give a man occasion to curse you: The scene imagined is that a beggar asks for alms, the passerby refuses, and the beggar curses him. We are not to create a situation where a person feels unjustly slighted and pronounces a curse. For comments on curse, see 3.9. Good News Translation “or give him any reason to curse you” is a helpful alternative model. However, there is the implication here, which Good News Translation misses, that the person is calling on God to cause harm to the other individual. This is evident from the second line in verse 6: “his Creator will hear his prayer.” So we may translate “or give him a reason to ask the Lord to harm you.”
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.