They also led them out with harsh treatment as slaves, or rather as traitors: Led them out is literally “led them down,” that is, down river to Alexandria. There are several Greek manuscripts with different texts here, but this is the best reading. With harsh treatment as slaves may be expressed as “treating them cruelly as if they were slaves.” Or rather as traitors may be rendered “or even traitors.” We may translate the first part of this verse as “They brought the Jews down river to Alexandria, treating them harshly as slaves, or even as traitors.”

Girding themselves with a cruelty more savage than that of Scythian custom simply means the king’s advisers were very cruel to the Jews. Compare the use of the idiom “gird with” in Psa 18.32; 30.11; 65.6. The “Scythians” were a nomadic people of Eurasia who were known among the peoples of the Near East as the most savage of barbarians (see 2 Macc 4.47; 4 Macc 10.7).

They tried without any inquiry or examination to put them to death means the advisers wanted the Jews put to death without a legal trial of any kind. Inquiry and examination mean the same thing, so without any inquiry or examination may be rendered “without any kind of trial.”

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• They brought the Jews down river to Alexandria, treating them harshly, as if they were slaves, or even traitors. They were as cruel as Scythians [or, acted like the cruelest people in the world], and tried to put these people to death without any kind of trial.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 3-4 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2018. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.