For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone, or again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment: The writer compares the writing of a story to making wine taste better by adding water. The logical connector For may be left implied (so Good News Bible). Wine in the ancient world was often so strong that it was mixed with water to taste better. People evidently believed that it was not healthy to drink either water or wine without mixing them. Good News Bible provides a good model for the first half of this verse. Here is another alternative: “If we drink wine by itself, it can be harmful to our health. Drinking water by itself is also harmful. But if we mix them together, they make an enjoyable drink.”

So also the style of the story delights the ears of those who read the work: Good News Bible provides a good model here also.

And here will be the end: Good News Bible expresses this ending well, saying “With this I conclude.”

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.