1 Maccabees 13:51-52

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

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) 52} Simon^[b] decreed that every year they should celebrate this day with rejoicing. He strengthened the fortifications of the temple hill alongside the citadel, and he and his men lived there.^(B)