In such words he wrote to his whole kingdom: We recommend making this sentence the conclusion of the paragraph, rather than the beginning of a new paragraph. It may be rendered simply “This was the message he sent to every part of his kingdom.”

And he appointed inspectors over all the people and commanded the cities of Judah to offer sacrifice, city by city: These clauses begin a new paragraph. Antiochus chose inspectors to carry out his decree that all the Jews make pagan sacrifices. To make it clear that the inspectors were to enforce the royal decree, it might be helpful to reverse the clauses here as follows: “The king commanded the people of every town in Judah to offer pagan sacrifices [or, sacrifices to foreign gods], and he appointed officials to see that everyone obeyed.”

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.