When you gain a friend is rendered by Good News Translation as “When you make friends.”

Gain him through testing: Revised Standard Version somehow suggests that before you can call anyone a friend, you must devise some kind of test for the person to pass. However, the point in this verse is that you have no grounds on which to consider someone a true friend unless the two of you have been through some uncomfortable experience in which that person has proved loyal to you. So Good News Translation expresses this correctly with “make sure that they have proved themselves,” or we may say “make sure that the person has already showed his loyalty to you.”

And do not trust him hastily: Good News Translation has “don’t be too quick to trust them,” which is a good alternative model.

Good News Translation has reordered the three clauses in this verse, moving the third one into second place. This is a possible model for some translators. However, the original order as expressed in Revised Standard Version may be maintained by saying:

• When you make friends, make sure they have proved themselves loyal to you before you trust them.

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.