They were shut up by him in their towers; and he encamped against them: The Greek word for towers may refer to forts or to lookout towers. “Forts” works well in this context. Good News Bible combines these two clauses, since they mean roughly the same thing. Goldstein has “Judas drove them to shut themselves up in their forts, surrounded them.” We suggest the following model: “He and his men chased them into their forts and surrounded them.”

Vowed their complete destruction refers to a formal, ritual pronouncement that the enemy must be totally destroyed. Good News Bible says “took a solemn oath that he would destroy them.” New English Bible has “then he solemnly committed them to destruction,” New Jerusalem Bible translates “he put them under the curse of destruction,” Goldstein says “ritually doomed them to destruction,” and New American Bible uses “he vowed their annihilation.” Other possible models are “He solemnly declared to destroy all of them,” “He made a strong promise to Heaven to destroy them completely,” and “He strongly promised Heaven, ‘I will kill all of them.’”

And burned with fire their towers and all who were in them may be expressed as “He then set fire to their forts, and everyone in them burned to death.” The Revised Standard Version footnote here indicates that the Greek text has “her” instead of their. The pronoun “her” refers to the town. Revised Standard Version prefers the pronoun their, which refers to the people of the town.

Alternative models for this verse are:

• He chased them into their forts. When he had surrounded them, he solemnly declared that all of them must die, and then set fire to their forts. Everyone in them burned to death.

• He chased them into their forts and surrounded them. Then he made a strong promise to Heaven, saying, “I will kill all of them.” He set fire to their forts, and everyone in them burned to death.

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.