1 Maccabees 4:26-35

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

First Campaign of Lysias

²⁶ Those of the foreigners who escaped went and reported to Lysias all that had happened.^{(A) 27} When he heard it, he was perplexed and discouraged, for things had not happened to Israel as he had intended, nor had they turned out as the king had ordered. ²⁸ But the next year he mustered sixty thousand picked infantry and five thousand cavalry to subdue them.^{(B) 29} They came into Idumea and encamped at Beth-zur, and Judas met them with ten thousand men.^(C)

³⁰ When he saw that their army was strong, he prayed, saying, “Blessed are you, O Savior of Israel, who crushed the attack of the mighty warrior by the hand of your servant David and gave the camp of the Philistines into the hands of Jonathan son of Saul and of the man who carried his armor.^{(D) 31} Hem in this army by the hand of your people Israel, and let them be ashamed of their troops and their cavalry.^{(E) 32} Fill them with cowardice; melt the boldness of their strength; let them tremble in their destruction. ³³ Strike them down with the sword of those who love you, and let all who know your name praise you with hymns.”

³⁴ Then both sides attacked, and there fell of the army of Lysias five thousand men; they fell before them.^{[a](F) 35} When Lysias saw the rout of his troops and observed the boldness that inspired those of Judas and how ready they were either to live or to die nobly, he withdrew to Antioch and enlisted mercenaries in order to invade Judea again with an even larger army.