This is a natural place to begin a new paragraph (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible).

So John chose out of the country twenty thousand warriors and horsemen, and they marched against Cendebeus and camped for the night in Modein: In the Greek text John is literally “he.” Although Goldstein translates with Simon as the subject all the way through verse 7, we urge translators to make John the subject of these verses (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible). The country is Judea, the area controlled by the Maccabees. Good News Bible makes this explicit in saying “an Israelite army.” The idea of “trained” troops in Good News Bible is not in the Greek. Elsewhere the Greek has a word rendered “picked” to describe troops, which Good News Bible often translates as “experienced” or “well-trained” (see, for example, 1Macc 4.1; 9.5). However, here the idea of picking or choosing is in the verb chose. This verse is the first time in the book a Judean cavalry is mentioned. For the village of Modein, see 1Macc 2.1. An alternative model for this verse is:

• John chose 20,000 [or, twenty thousand] men from the foot soldiers and horse soldiers in Judea. They marched out to fight Cendebeus, and made camp for the night in Modein.

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.