⁵¹ On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews^[a] entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.^(A)

²⁷ When they had collected the arms of the enemy and stripped them of their spoils, they kept the Sabbath, giving great praise and thanks to the Lord, who had preserved them for that day and allotted it to them as the beginning of mercy.^(A)

⁹ And together they all praised the merciful God and were strengthened in heart, ready to assail not only humans but the wildest animals or walls of iron.^(A)