My son, let your tears fall for the dead: With My son the writer addresses the reader as a teacher addressing a student; see the comments on 2.1. For this line Good News Translation is good with “My child, when someone dies, you should mourn.” Another approach is “Students, it is proper to mourn when someone dies.”

And as one who is suffering grievously begin the lament: Suffering refers to the grief felt when a loved one dies. Good News Translation “Weep and wail to show how deeply you feel the loss” expresses the idea in grievously and lament, turning an adverb and a noun into verbs.

Lay out his body with the honor due him: The Greek verb translated Lay out refers to preparing the body of a dead person for burial. In ben Sira’s time this probably referred to wrapping the body in cloths. So for Lay out his body, we may say “Prepare the body to be buried [or, for burial].” With the honor due him is better translated “with proper ceremony” (New English Bible), that is, doing the things that are customary for burial preparation. Good News Translation translates “in the proper way.”

And do not neglect his burial: Good News Translation “be present at the burial” interprets the Greek in light of the Hebrew. This is possible, but Revised Standard Version is on good grounds in taking it to mean “pay proper attention to the burial” itself as well as to the preparations for it. The most natural way of understanding the Greek, however, is to translate “grave/tomb” instead of burial (so New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). For the last two lines of this verse we could say “Prepare the body for burial in a suitable way, and pay proper attention to the tomb [or, grave].”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Students, it is proper to mourn [or, weep] when someone dies. You should weep and wail to show how very sad you are. Prepare the body for burial in a suitable way, and pay proper attention to the tomb [or, grave].

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.