2 Maccabees 10

¹ Maccabaeus and his companions, under the Lord's guidance, restored the Temple and the city,

² and pul ed down the altars erected by the foreigners in the market place, as wel as the shrines.

³ They purified the sanctuary and built another altar; then, striking fire from flints and using this fire, theyoffered the first sacrifice for two years, burning incense, lighting the lamps and setting out the loaves.

⁴ When they had done this, prostrating themselves on the ground, they implored the Lord never againto let them fal into such adversity, but if they should ever sin, to correct them with moderation and not to deliverthem over to blasphemous and barbarous nations.

⁵ This day of the purification of the Temple fell on the very day on which the Temple had been profanedby the foreigners, the twenty-fifth of the same month, Chislev.

⁶ They kept eight festal days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of Shelters, remembering how,not long before at the time of the feast of Shelters, they had been living in the mountains and caverns like wildbeasts.

⁷ Then, carrying thyrsuses, leafy boughs and palms, they offered hymns to him who had brought thecleansing of his own holy place to a happy outcome.

⁸ They also decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole Jewish nation should celebratethose same days every year.

⁹ Such were the circumstances attending the death of Antiochus styled Epiphanes.

¹⁰ Our task now is to unfold the history of Antiochus Eupator, son of that godless man, and briefly torelate the evil effects of the wars.

¹¹ On coming to the throne, this prince put at the head of affairs a certain Lysias, the general officercommanding Coele-Syria and Phoenicia,

¹² whereas Ptolemy, known as Macron, and the first person to govern the Jews justly, had done hisbest to govern them peaceful y to make up for the wrongs inflicted on them in the past.

¹³ Denounced, in consequence, to Eupator by the Friends of the King, he heard himself cal ed traitor atevery turn: for having abandoned Cyprus, which had been entrusted to him by Philometer, for having gone overto Antiochus Epiphanes, and for having shed no lustre on his il ustrious office: he committed suicide by poisoninghimself.

¹⁴ Gorgias now became general of the area; he maintained a force of mercenaries and a continualstate of war with the Jews.

¹⁵ At the same time, the Idumaeans, who controlled important fortresses, were harassing the Jews,welcoming outlaws from Jerusalem and endeavouring to maintain a state of war.

¹⁶ Maccabaeus and his men, after making public supplication to God, entreating him to support them,began operations against the Idumaean fortresses.

¹⁷ Vigorously pressing home their attack, they seized possession of these vantage points, beating offal who fought on the ramparts; they slaughtered al who fel into their hands, accounting for no fewer than twentythousand.

¹⁸ Nine thousand at least took refuge in two exceptional y strong towers with everything they needed towithstand a siege,

¹⁹ whereupon, Maccabaeus left Simon and Joseph, with Zacchaeus and his forces, in sufficientnumbers to besiege them, and himself went off to other places requiring his attention.

²⁰ But Simon's men were greedy for money and al owed themselves to be bribed by some of the menin the towers; accepting seventy thousand drachmas, they let a number of them escape.

²¹ When Maccabaeus was told what had happened, he summoned the people's commanders andaccused the offenders of having sold their brothers for money by releasing their enemies to fight them.

²² Having executed them as traitors, he at once proceeded to capture both towers.

²³ Successful in all that he undertook by force of arms, in these two fortresses he slaughtered morethan twenty thousand men.

²⁴ Timotheus, who had been beaten by the Jews once before, now assembled an enormous force ofmercenaries, mustering cavalry from Asia in considerable numbers, and soon appeared in Judaea, expecting toconquer it by force of arms.

²⁵ At his approach, Maccabaeus and his men made their supplications to God, sprinkling earth on theirheads and putting sackcloth round their waists.

²⁶ Prostrating themselves on the terrace before the altar, they begged him to support them and to showhimself the enemy of their enemies, the adversary of their adversaries, as the Law clearly states.

²⁷ After these prayers, they armed themselves and advanced a fair distance from the city, halting whenthey were close to the enemy.

²⁸ As the first light of dawn began to spread, the two sides joined battle, the one having as their pledgeof success and victory not only their own valour but their recourse to the Lord, the other making their own ardourtheir mainstay in the fight.

²⁹ When the battle was at its height, the enemy saw five magnificent men appear from heaven onhorses with golden bridles and put themselves at the head of the Jews;

³⁰ surrounding Maccabaeus and screening him with their own armour, they kept him unscathed, whilethey rained arrows and thunderbolts on the enemy until, blinded and confused, they scattered in completedisorder.

³¹ Twenty thousand five hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry were slaughtered.

³² Timotheus himself fled to a strongly guarded citadel cal ed Gezer, where Chaereas was incommand.

³³ For four days Maccabaeus and his men eagerly besieged the fortress,

³⁴ while the defenders, confident in the security of the place, hurled fearful blasphemies and godlessinsults at them.

³⁵ At daybreak on the fifth day, twenty young men of Maccabaeus' forces, fired with indignation at theblasphemies, manful y assaulted the wall, with wild courage cutting down everyone they encountered.

³⁶ Others, in a similar scaling operation, took the defenders in the rear, and set fire to the towers,lighting pyres on which they burned the blasphemers alive. The first, meanwhile, breaking open the gates, let therest of the army in and, at their head, captured the town.

³⁷ Timotheus had hidden in a storage-wel , but they kil ed him, with his brother Chaereas, andApol ophanes.

³⁸ When al this was over, with hymns and thanksgiving they blessed the Lord, who had shown suchgreat kindness to Israel and given them the victory.