When Gorgias entered the camp of Judas by night, he found no one there may be expressed as “During the night Gorgias arrived at Judas’ camp. But he found no one there.”

So he looked for them in the hills, because he said, “These men are fleeing from us”: For the rendering of hills, see the comments on 1Macc 2.28. The quotation at the end of this verse is not necessarily anything Gorgias actually said, but is put here so that the reader may know his thinking. It can be expressed as an indirect quote by rendering the last half of this verse as “He thought that the Jews were trying to escape from him, so he and his men went into the hills to look [or, search] for them.”

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.