The flesh of thy saints and their blood they poured out round Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them: This verse loosely quotes Psa 79.2-3. The difficulty here is that people do not usually speak of flesh being poured out. Good News Bible and New English Bible sensibly speak of blood being poured out, and of dead bodies being scattered around Jerusalem. This is a good solution. Thy saints refers to the Jews who remained faithful to their religion. Good News Bible says “your faithful people,” which is a good rendering. There was none may be expressed as “there was no one left” (Good News Bible; similarly Contemporary English Version).

We should stress that simply setting up this verse with indented lines as Good News Bible has done does not necessarily make it poetry. If translators are going to put this into poetry, they must decide the most natural way to set up these lines in their language.

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.