Ask and learn who I am and who the others are that are helping us: A model that expresses the taunting tone here is “Do you know who I am? Do you know who all the others are that are on our side? Just ask anyone and you’ll find out!”

Men will tell you that you cannot stand before us may be expressed as “You will discover [or, People will tell you] that you have no chance of beating us.”

For your fathers were twice put to flight in their own land: It is not clear what Apollonius has in view here. Some think he is referring to the fairly recent defeats suffered by Judas Maccabeus (1Macc 6.47; 9.6-18), but others think he has in mind two occasions when the Israelites were decisively beaten by the Philistines (1~Sam 4.10-11; 31.1-7). The use of the term fathers (Good News Bible “ancestors”) makes the latter viewpoint more likely. More specifically, he may be thinking of the locations of those two battles in the hill country. The idea may be “Your ancestors couldn’t even win a battle on their own terrain; how do you think you can beat us down here on the plain?” The logical connector for may be left implied (so Good News Bible), or expressed as “because.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Do you know who I am? Do you know who all the others are that are on my side? Just ask anyone and you’ll find out! People will tell you that you can’t win. Your ancestors couldn’t win battles on their own ground. They lost twice.

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.