2 Maccabees 15:16-18

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

¹⁶ ‘Take this holy sword, a gift from God, with which you will strike down your adversaries.’

¹⁷ Encouraged by the words of Judas, so noble and so effective in arousing valour and awaking courage in the souls of the young, they determined not to carry on a campaign^[a] but to attack bravely, and to decide the matter by fighting hand to hand with all courage, because the city and the sanctuary and the temple were in danger. ¹⁸ Their concern for wives and children, and also for brothers and sisters^[b] and relatives, lay upon them less heavily; their greatest and first fear was for the consecrated sanctuary.