Even if he does good, he does it unintentionally is literally “If he does any good, he does it through forgetfulness” (An American Translation). Most people forget to do something good, and a wrong results. In the case of the miser, an occasional good results when he slips, and forgets to be miserly. Good News Translation is good here, but we could also say “If he does a good deed, it is only because he has forgotten something” or “… it is only by mistake.”

And betrays his baseness in the end: Baseness translates a general Greek word for something that is bad. Here it refers to stinginess. “Sooner or later” (Good News Translation) is an English idiom for in the end, which is literally “at last.” For the whole line we could say “Sooner or later his stinginess will come through” or “Sooner or later it will be clear to all how stingy [or, miserly/ungenerous] he really is.”

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.