1 Maccabees 3:27-41

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Policy of Antiochus

²⁷ When King Antiochus heard these reports, he was greatly angered, and he sent and gathered all the forces of his kingdom, a very strong army.^{(A) 28} He opened his coffers and gave a year’s pay to his forces and ordered them to be ready for any need. ²⁹ Then he saw that the money in the treasury was exhausted and that the tribute payments from the country were small because of the dissension and disaster that he had caused in the land by abolishing the laws that had existed from the earliest days. ³⁰ He feared that he might not have such funds as he had before for his expenses and for the gifts that he used to give more lavishly than preceding kings. ³¹ He was greatly perplexed in mind; then he determined to go to Persia and collect the tribute payments from those regions and raise a large fund.^(B)

³² He left Lysias, a distinguished man of royal lineage, in charge of the king’s affairs from the River Euphrates to the borders of Egypt.^{(C) 33} Lysias was also to take care of his son Antiochus until he returned.^{(D) 34} And he turned over to Lysias^[a] half of his forces and the elephants and gave him orders about all that he wanted done. As for the residents of Judea and Jerusalem,^{(E) 35} Lysias was to send a force against them to wipe out and destroy the strength of Israel and the remnant of Jerusalem; he was to banish the memory of them from the place,^{(F) 36} settle strangers in all their territory, and distribute their land by lot. ³⁷ Then the king took the remaining half of his forces and left Antioch his capital in the one hundred and forty-seventh year. He crossed the Euphrates River and went through the upper provinces.^(G)

Preparations for Battle

³⁸ Lysias chose Ptolemy son of Dorymenes and Nicanor and Gorgias, able men among the Friends of the king,^{(H) 39} and sent with them forty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry to go into the land of Judah and destroy it, as the king had commanded. ⁴⁰ So they set out with their entire force, and when they arrived they encamped near Emmaus in the plain.^{(I) 41} When the traders of the region heard what was said to them, they took silver and gold in immense amounts and fetters^[b] and went to the camp to get the Israelites for slaves. And forces from Syria and the land of the Philistines^[c] joined with them.^(J)