And they tore down the altars which had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts: The public square was the city marketplace. The sacred precincts were various other places of worship for idols that Gentiles had built here and there in the city (see 1Macc 1.47). Goldstein translates “the illicit shrines,” and Good News Bible has “the other places of worship that had been built.” We may reverse the order of the clauses in this verse as follows:

• They destroyed the places of worship that the foreigners had built, along with the altars they had erected in the city marketplace.

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.