1 Maccabees 9:32-49
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Campaigns of Jonathan
32 When Bacchides learned of this, he tried to kill him. 33 But Jonathan and his brother Simon and all who were with him heard of it, and they fled into the wilderness of Tekoa and camped by the water of the pool of Asphar.(A) 34 Bacchides found this out on the Sabbath day, and he with all his army crossed the Jordan.(B)
35 So Jonathan[a] sent his brother as leader of the multitude and begged the Nabateans, who were his friends, for permission to store with them the great amount of baggage that they had.(C) 36 But the family of Jambri from Medeba came out and seized John and all that he had and left with it.
37 After these things it was reported to Jonathan and his brother Simon, “The family of Jambri are celebrating a great wedding and are conducting the bride, a daughter of one of the great nobles of Canaan, from Nadabath with a large escort.” 38 Remembering how their brother John had been killed, they went up and hid under cover of the mountain. 39 They looked out and saw a tumultuous procession with a great amount of baggage, and the bridegroom came out with his friends and his brothers to meet them with tambourines and musicians and many weapons. 40 Then they rushed on them from the ambush and began killing them. Many were wounded and fell, and the rest fled to the mountain, and the troops[b] took all their goods.(D) 41 So the wedding was turned into mourning and the voice of their musicians into a funeral dirge. 42 After they had fully avenged the blood of their brother, they returned to the marshes of the Jordan.
43 When Bacchides heard of this, he came with a large force on the Sabbath day to the banks of the Jordan.(E) 44 And Jonathan said to those with him, “Let us get up now and fight for our lives, for today things are not as they were before.(F) 45 For look! The battle is in front of us and behind us; the water of the Jordan is on this side and on that, with marsh and thicket; there is no place to turn.(G) 46 Cry out now to heaven that you may be delivered from the hands of our enemies.” 47 So the battle began, and Jonathan stretched out his hand to strike Bacchides, but he eluded him and went to the rear. 48 Then Jonathan and the men with him leaped into the Jordan and swam across to the other side, and Bacchides’s troops[c] did not cross the Jordan to attack them. 49 And about one thousand of Bacchides’s men fell that day.
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