Or else give me for them five hundred talents: Or else may be expanded to “If you are unwilling to do this” (Good News Bible). For the value of the “talent,” see the comments on 1Macc 11.28. Good News Bible is unclear concerning what the first five hundred talents are for. It is essentially a payment for the cities captured by Simon outside of Judea. So we may begin this verse with “If you are unwilling to do this, then pay me 17,000 kilograms [or, 37,500 pounds] of silver for those cities.” Antiochus is effectively saying that he is willing to sell the cities to Simon.

And for the destruction that you have caused and the tribute money of the cities, five hundred talents more: The second amount of five hundred talents is to compensate Antiochus for the tax money he has lost while the places were under Jewish control, and to compensate him for property damage done while they were under Jewish control.

Otherwise we will come and conquer you: Otherwise may be expanded to “If you refuse to do either of these” (Good News Bible) or “If you don’t do this” (Contemporary English Version). “We will go to war against you” (Good News Bible) better represents the Greek than we will come and conquer you, although the threat to conquer Judea is certainly implied. In some languages this will be expressed as “we will come [or, go] and attack you.”

This ends the quotation of Antiochus’ message begun in verse 28, which was given to Athenobius to deliver to Simon.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.