One of them, acting as their spokesman, said: We advise beginning this verse with a connector such as “Then” (Good News Bible) or “But” (Contemporary English Version). One of them may be rendered “one of the brothers” (Contemporary English Version). Good News Bible omits acting as their spokesman, but it should be expressed by translating this whole clause as “Then one of the brothers spoke for all of them and said.”

What do you intend to ask and learn from us?: By asking this question the young man is letting the torturers know that they are not going to succeed. There is a problem here since the young man indicates that they are being questioned under torture, but verse 1 says that the lashing was to get them to disobey Jewish law. This problem is built into the text and is unavoidable, but still, a translation may make it less obvious. Good News Bible does this by saying “What do you hope to gain by doing this?” This question may be reframed as a statement: “You’re not accomplishing anything by doing this to us.”

For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers: For the laws of our fathers, see the comments on 2Macc 6.1.

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.