Those women who had recently been arrayed for marriage (which is awkward English) renders a difficult Greek expression. The verb rendered arrayed for marriage is not used in this sense elsewhere, but marriage is surely in view here. Contemporary English Version says “engaged to be married,” which is not wrong, but we prefer to follow Anderson in understanding it to mean “recently married.”

Abandoned the bridal chambers prepared for wedded union: A bridal chamber refers to a room in which a newly married couple slept together. The phrase for wedded union adds nothing to the sense here, but is typical of the flowery language used by this author. So we may begin this verse with “Women who had just been married left their wedding bedrooms….”

And, neglecting proper modesty, in a disorderly rush flocked together in the city: Contemporary English Version interprets neglecting proper modesty to mean “half-naked.” The author is not clear here, but this is a reasonable interpretation—or at least that the young brides were not decently or properly dressed to be out in the streets. Conceivably the meaning is that it was a shameless thing for them to be running around in the streets at all, with no reference at all to their dress or lack of it. In a disorderly rush flocked together is not necessarily what the difficult Greek says here. The verb rendered flocked together (Contemporary English Version “huddled together”) would normally mean something like that, but then it becomes hard to account for the phrase in a disorderly rush (which renders a direct object in Greek; there is no preposition in). We can read this clause literally as “made [or, put together] a disorderly run.” Anderson says “ran about in disorder,” Hadas has “dashed disorderly,” and Emmet translates “ran about in confusion.” We prefer Emmet’s rendering.

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• Women who had recently been married left their bedrooms, and not caring about modesty, ran around the city in confusion [or, disorder].

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 3-4 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2018. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.