2 Maccabees 11-13

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Lysias Besieges Beth-zur

11 Very soon after this, Lysias, the king’s guardian and kinsman, who was in charge of the government, being vexed at what had happened, ² gathered about eighty thousand infantry and all his cavalry and came against the Jews. He intended to make the city a home for Greeks, ³ and to levy tribute on the temple as he did on the sacred places of the other nations, and to put up the high priesthood for sale every year. ⁴ He took no account whatever of the power of God, but was elated with his ten thousands of infantry, and his thousands of cavalry, and his eighty elephants. ⁵ Invading Judea, he approached Beth-zur, which was a fortified place about five stadia^[a] from Jerusalem, and pressed it hard.

⁶ When Maccabeus and his men got word that Lysias^[b] was besieging the strongholds, they and all the people, with lamentations and tears, prayed the Lord to send a good angel to save Israel. ⁷ Maccabeus himself was the first to take up arms, and he urged the others to risk their lives with him to aid their kindred. Then they eagerly rushed off together. ⁸ And there, while they were still near Jerusalem, a horseman appeared at their head, clothed in white and brandishing weapons of gold. 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. ¹⁰ They advanced in battle order, having their heavenly ally, for the Lord had mercy on them. ¹¹ They hurled themselves like lions against the enemy, and laid low eleven thousand of them and sixteen hundred cavalry, and forced all the rest to flee. ¹² Most of them got away stripped and wounded, and Lysias himself escaped by disgraceful flight.

Lysias Makes Peace with the Jews

¹³ As he was not without intelligence, he pondered over the defeat that had befallen him, and realized that the Hebrews were invincible because the mighty God fought on their side. So he sent to them ¹⁴ and persuaded them to settle everything on just terms, promising that he would persuade the king, constraining him to be their friend.^{[c] 15} Maccabeus, having regard for the common good, agreed to all that Lysias urged. For the king granted every request in behalf of the Jews which Maccabeus delivered to Lysias in writing.

¹⁶ The letter written to the Jews by Lysias was to this effect:

“Lysias to the people of the Jews, greetings. ¹⁷ John and Absalom, who were sent by you, have delivered your signed communication and have asked about the matters indicated in it. ¹⁸ I have informed the king of everything that needed to be brought before him, and he has agreed to what was possible. ¹⁹ If you will maintain your goodwill toward the government, I will endeavor in the future to help promote your welfare. ²⁰ And concerning such matters and their details, I have ordered these men and my representatives to confer with you. ²¹ Farewell. The one hundred forty-eighth year,^[d] Dioscorinthius twenty-fourth.”

²² The king’s letter ran thus:

“King Antiochus to his brother Lysias, greetings. ²³ Now that our father has gone on to the gods, we desire that the subjects of the kingdom be undisturbed in caring for their own affairs. ²⁴ We have heard that the Jews do not consent to our father’s change to Greek customs, but prefer their own way of living and ask that their own customs be allowed them. ²⁵ Accordingly, since we choose that this nation also should be free from disturbance, our decision is that their temple be restored to them and that they shall live according to the customs of their ancestors. ²⁶ You will do well, therefore, to send word to them and give them pledges of friendship, so that they may know our policy and be of good cheer and go on happily in the conduct of their own affairs.”

²⁷ To the nation the king’s letter was as follows:

“King Antiochus to the senate of the Jews and to the other Jews, greetings. ²⁸ If you are well, it is as we desire. We also are in good health. ²⁹ Menelaus has informed us that you wish to return home and look after your own affairs. ³⁰ Therefore those who go home by the thirtieth of Xanthicus will have our pledge of friendship and full permission ³¹ for the Jews to enjoy their own food and laws, just as formerly, and none of them shall be molested in any way for what may have been done in ignorance. ³² And I have also sent Menelaus to encourage you. ³³ Farewell. The one hundred forty-eighth year,^[e] Xanthicus fifteenth.”

³⁴ The Romans also sent them a letter, which read thus:

“Quintus Memmius and Titus Manius, envoys of the Romans, to the people of the Jews, greetings. ³⁵ With regard to what Lysias the kinsman of the king has granted you, we also give consent. ³⁶ But as to the matters that he decided are to be referred to the king, as soon as you have considered them, send some one promptly so that we may make proposals appropriate for you. For we are on our way to Antioch. ³⁷ Therefore make haste and send messengers so that we may have your judgment. ³⁸ Farewell. The one hundred forty-eighth year,^[f] Xanthicus fifteenth.”

Incidents at Joppa and Jamnia

12 When this agreement had been reached, Lysias returned to the king, and the Jews went about their farming.

² But some of the governors in various places, Timothy and Apollonius son of Gennaeus, as well as Hieronymus and Demophon, and in addition to these Nicanor the governor of Cyprus, would not let them live quietly and in peace. ³ And the people of Joppa did so ungodly a deed as this: they invited the Jews who lived among them to embark, with their wives and children, on boats that they had provided, as though there were no ill will to the Jews;^{[g] 4} and this was done by public vote of the city. When they accepted, because they wished to live peaceably and suspected nothing, the people of Joppa^[h] took them out to sea and drowned them, at least two hundred. ⁵ When Judas heard of the cruelty visited on his compatriots, he gave orders to his men ⁶ and, calling upon God, the righteous judge, attacked the murderers of his kindred. He set fire to the harbor by night, burned the boats, and massacred those who had taken refuge there. ⁷ Then, because the city’s gates were closed, he withdrew, intending to come again and root out the whole community of Joppa. ⁸ But learning that the people in Jamnia meant in the same way to wipe out the Jews who were living among them, ⁹ he attacked the Jamnites by night and set fire to the harbor and the fleet, so that the glow of the light was seen in Jerusalem, thirty miles^[i] distant.

The Campaign in Gilead

¹⁰ When they had gone more than a mile^[j] from there, on their march against Timothy, at least five thousand Arabs with five hundred cavalry attacked them. ¹¹ After a hard fight, Judas and his companions, with God’s help, were victorious. The defeated nomads begged Judas to grant them pledges of friendship, promising to give him livestock and to help his people^[k] in all other ways. ¹² Judas, realizing that they might indeed be useful in many ways, agreed to make peace with them; and after receiving his pledges they went back to their tents.

¹³ He also attacked a certain town that was strongly fortified with earthworks^[l] and walls, and inhabited by all sorts of Gentiles. Its name was Caspin. ¹⁴ Those who were within, relying on the strength of the walls and on their supply of provisions, behaved most insolently toward Judas and his men, railing at them and even blaspheming and saying unholy things. ¹⁵ But Judas and his men, calling upon the great Sovereign of the world, who without battering rams or engines of war overthrew Jericho in the days of Joshua, rushed furiously upon the walls. ¹⁶ They took the town by the will of God, and slaughtered untold numbers, so that the adjoining lake, a quarter of a mile^[m] wide, appeared to be running over with blood.

Judas Defeats Timothy’s Army

¹⁷ When they had gone ninety-five miles^[n] from there, they came to Charax, to the Jews who are called Toubiani. ¹⁸ They did not find Timothy in that region, for he had by then left there without accomplishing anything, though in one place he had left a very strong garrison. ¹⁹ Dositheus and Sosipater, who were captains under Maccabeus, marched out and destroyed those whom Timothy had left in the stronghold, more than ten thousand men. ²⁰ But Maccabeus arranged his army in divisions, set men^[o] in command of the divisions, and hurried after Timothy, who had with him one hundred twenty thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry. ²¹ When Timothy learned of the approach of Judas, he sent off the women and the children and also the baggage to a place called Carnaim; for that place was hard to besiege and difficult of access because of the narrowness of all the approaches. ²² But when Judas’s first division appeared, terror and fear came over the enemy at the manifestation to them of him who sees all things. In their flight they rushed headlong in every direction, so that often they were injured by their own men and pierced by the points of their own swords. ²³ Judas pressed the pursuit with the utmost vigor, putting the sinners to the sword, and destroyed as many as thirty thousand.

²⁴ Timothy himself fell into the hands of Dositheus and Sosipater and their men. With great guile he begged them to let him go in safety, because he held the parents of most of them, and the brothers of some, to whom no consideration would be shown. ²⁵ And when with many words he had confirmed his solemn promise to restore them unharmed, they let him go, for the sake of saving their kindred.

Judas Wins Other Victories

²⁶ Then Judas^[p] marched against Carnaim and the temple of Atargatis, and slaughtered twenty-five thousand people. ²⁷ After the rout and destruction of these, he marched also against Ephron, a fortified town where Lysias lived with multitudes of people of all nationalities.^[q] Stalwart young men took their stand before the walls and made a vigorous defense; and great stores of war engines and missiles were there. ²⁸ But the Jews^[r] called upon the Sovereign who with power shatters the might of his enemies, and they got the town into their hands, and killed as many as twenty-five thousand of those who were in it.

²⁹ Setting out from there, they hastened to Scythopolis, which is seventy-five miles^[s] from Jerusalem. ³⁰ But when the Jews who lived there bore witness to the goodwill that the people of Scythopolis had shown them and their kind treatment of them in times of misfortune, ³¹ they thanked them and exhorted them to be well disposed to their race in the future also. Then they went up to Jerusalem, as the festival of weeks was close at hand.

Judas Defeats Gorgias

³² After the festival called Pentecost, they hurried against Gorgias, the governor of Idumea, ³³ who came out with three thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry. ³⁴ When they joined battle, it happened that a few of the Jews fell. ³⁵ But a certain Dositheus, one of Bacenor’s men, who was on horseback and was a strong man, caught hold of Gorgias, and grasping his cloak was dragging him off by main strength, wishing to take the accursed man alive, when one of the Thracian cavalry bore down on him and cut off his arm; so Gorgias escaped and reached Marisa.

³⁶ As Esdris and his men had been fighting for a long time and were weary, Judas called upon the Lord to show himself their ally and leader in the battle. ³⁷ In the language of their ancestors he raised the battle cry, with hymns; then he charged against Gorgias’s troops when they were not expecting it, and put them to flight.

Prayers for Those Killed in Battle

³⁸ Then Judas assembled his army and went to the city of Adullam. As the seventh day was coming on, they purified themselves according to the custom, and kept the sabbath there.

³⁹ On the next day, as had now become necessary, Judas and his men went to take up the bodies of the fallen and to bring them back to lie with their kindred in the sepulchres of their ancestors. ⁴⁰ Then under the tunic of each one of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this was the reason these men had fallen. ⁴¹ So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; ⁴² and they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen. ⁴³ He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. ⁴⁴ For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. ⁴⁵ But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.

Menelaus Is Put to Death

13 In the one hundred forty-ninth year^[t] word came to Judas and his men that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a great army against Judea, ² and with him Lysias, his guardian, who had charge of the government. Each of them had a Greek force of one hundred ten thousand infantry, five thousand three hundred cavalry, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with scythes.

³ Menelaus also joined them and with utter hypocrisy urged Antiochus on, not for the sake of his country’s welfare, but because he thought that he would be established in office. ⁴ But the King of kings aroused the anger of Antiochus against the scoundrel; and when Lysias informed him that this man was to blame for all the trouble, he ordered them to take him to Beroea and to put him to death by the method that is customary in that place. ⁵ For there is a tower there, fifty cubits high, full of ashes, and it has a rim running around it that on all sides inclines precipitously into the ashes. ⁶ There they all push to destruction anyone guilty of sacrilege or notorious for other crimes. ⁷ By such a fate it came about that Menelaus the lawbreaker died, without even burial in the earth. ⁸ And this was eminently just; because he had committed many sins against the altar whose fire and ashes were holy, he met his death in ashes.

A Battle Near the City of Modein

⁹ The king with barbarous arrogance was coming to show the Jews things far worse than those that had been done^[u] in his father’s time. ¹⁰ But when Judas heard of this, he ordered the people to call upon the Lord day and night, now if ever to help those who were on the point of being deprived of the law and their country and the holy temple, ¹¹ and not to let the people who had just begun to revive fall into the hands of the blasphemous Gentiles. ¹² When they had all joined in the same petition and had implored the merciful Lord with weeping and fasting and lying prostrate for three days without ceasing, Judas exhorted them and ordered them to stand ready.

¹³ After consulting privately with the elders, he determined to march out and decide the matter by the help of God before the king’s army could enter Judea and get possession of the city. ¹⁴ So, committing the decision to the Creator of the world and exhorting his troops to fight bravely to the death for the laws, temple, city, country, and commonwealth, he pitched his camp near Modein. ¹⁵ He gave his troops the watchword, “God’s victory,” and with a picked force of the bravest young men, he attacked the king’s pavilion at night and killed as many as two thousand men in the camp. He stabbed^[v] the leading elephant and its rider. ¹⁶ In the end they filled the camp with terror and confusion and withdrew in triumph. ¹⁷ This happened, just as day was dawning, because the Lord’s help protected him.

Antiochus Makes a Treaty with the Jews

¹⁸ The king, having had a taste of the daring of the Jews, tried strategy in attacking their positions. ¹⁹ He advanced against Beth-zur, a strong fortress of the Jews, was turned back, attacked again,^[w] and was defeated. ²⁰ Judas sent in to the garrison whatever was necessary. ²¹ But Rhodocus, a man from the ranks of the Jews, gave secret information to the enemy; he was sought for, caught, and put in prison. ²² The king negotiated a second time with the people in Beth-zur, gave pledges, received theirs, withdrew, attacked Judas and his men, was defeated; ²³ he got word that Philip, who had been left in charge of the government, had revolted in Antioch; he was dismayed, called in the Jews, yielded and swore to observe all their rights, settled with them and offered sacrifice, honored the sanctuary and showed generosity to the holy place. ²⁴ He received Maccabeus, left Hegemonides as governor from Ptolemais to Gerar, ²⁵ and went to Ptolemais. The people of Ptolemais were indignant over the treaty; in fact they were so angry that they wanted to annul its terms.^{[x] 26} Lysias took the public platform, made the best possible defense, convinced them, appeased them, gained their goodwill, and set out for Antioch. This is how the king’s attack and withdrawal turned out.