So he was greatly enraged at the lawless men who had counseled him to come into the country, and he killed many of them: In verses 58-59 the lawless men (Good News Bible “the traitorous Jews”) invited Bacchides to return to Judea. Continuing from verse 68, we could render this sentence as “… and was so furious with the renegade Jews who had advised him to come back to Judea that he killed many of them.”

Then he decided to depart to his own land: This statement is more closely related to the following action than the preceding action. Good News Bible does well to begin a new paragraph here and to tie the sentence to the next verse.

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.