Any wound, but not a wound of the heart!: Here the author is not speaking of an actual physical wound to a person’s heart. He is thinking of the heart as a symbol of feeling and emotion. Good News Translation expresses this line as a simple statement: “No wound is as serious as wounded love.” Contemporary English Version keeps the figure of the heart by saying “The breaking of your heart … is the most painful of all injuries.”

Any wickedness, but not the wickedness of a wife!: Notice the close parallel form of this line with the previous line. A good translation will try to reflect this. Good News Translation has expressed this line also as a statement, one very similar to the previous line: “No troubles are as serious as the troubles that women cause.” There are two exegetical problems in this line. First, are we talking about a wife or simply “a woman?” The Greek here can mean either. Almost surely “a woman” is intended, and we suggest that translators adopt this if their language requires this distinction. Second, does wickedness refer to bad things done by the woman (so Revised Standard Version), to bad situations caused by the woman (so Good News Translation), or is the writer saying that the woman herself is the bad thing (so New American Bible)? The Greek can be read in any of these ways, but the context may help us decide. In verses 13-15 the writer always speaks of things that would hurt or harm a man: a wound, an attack, vengeance, poison, wrath. Applying this to verse 13b, “the wickedness of a woman” must be something done by a woman to cause hurt to a man, so Revised Standard Version is right. The problem then becomes how to translate the Greek noun for wickedness. Wickedness is misleading. It sounds like “sin,” but ben Sira is not talking about an offense a woman might commit against God; he’s talking about something she does to hurt a man. New English Bible and New Jerusalem Bible say “spite.” We could also render it “maliciousness,” “meanness,” or “cruelty,” so possible renderings for the whole line are “No cruelty is as bad as the cruelty of a woman” and “No cruelty is as bad as the cruel things a woman can do to a man.” “Hatefulness” will work here also, but note that the word “hate” appears in the next verse, and it would be best not to use a form of the same word in both cases.

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.