Then the most glorious, almighty, and true God revealed his holy face: God revealed himself to Philopator and the other Gentiles. In the phrase revealed his holy face, the adjective holy is already included in the pronoun his, so it may be rendered simply “revealed himself.” A model for this whole clause is “Just then [or, Right at that moment], the most glorious, all-powerful, and only true God revealed himself to all the Gentiles.”

And opened the heavenly gates may be translated “and opened the gates [or, entrances] of heaven” or even “They saw him open the gates of heaven.”

From which two glorious angels of fearful aspect descended, visible to all but the Jews probably means the Gentiles saw two shining or shimmering [glorious] angels come down through the gates of heaven. The Greek word translated angels can also mean “messengers.” Here heavenly messengers from God are in view. Translators will have probably already struggled with the translation of this term both in the Old Testament (for example, Gen 16.7; 21.17) and the New Testament (for example, Matt 1.20; Luke 1.11; Acts 10.3). Fearful aspect means the angels appeared to the onlookers to be a threat, not a source of blessing, so the Gentiles were all terrified. This idea may be put into a final sentence, for example, “The Gentiles were terrified, but the Jews never saw anything.” The translator’s main problem here is that readers will begin the verse assuming the Jews saw what was happening, but are not told until the end that they did not.

One possible model for this verse is:

• Then God—the most glorious, the almighty [or, all-powerful], the only true God—appeared to the Gentiles! They saw him open the gates of heaven, and two shining angels came down. The Gentiles were terrified, but the Jews saw none of this.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 3-4 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2018. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.