But he looked at the king, and said: Good News Bible‘s idiom, “he looked the king squarely in the eye,” is effective, but is much stronger than the Greek really is. We prefer to say “he looked straight at the king.”

Because you have authority among men, mortal though you are, you do what you please: The young man tells the king that he (the king) can do anything he wants to do and get away with it, because he has the authority to do so as the ruler, but he also reminds the king that he is just as mortal as anyone else. In other words, the king is going to die too. You do what you please may be expressed as “you can do anything you want with us.” An alternative model for the whole sentence is “You’re going to die like anyone else, but because you are a ruler, you can do anything you want to [with us].”

But do not think that God has forsaken our people: Good News Bible provides a useful model here. Another possibility is “But that doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us [or, his people].”

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.