Visions of a Battle

1About this time Antiochus the Fourth made a second attack against Egypt. 2For nearly forty days people all over Jerusalem saw visions of cavalry troops in gold armour charging across the sky. The riders were armed with spears and their swords were drawn. 3They were lined up in battle against one another, attacking and counter-attacking. Shields were clashing, there was a rain of spears, and arrows flew through the air. All the different kinds of armour and the gold bridles on the horses flashed in the sunlight. 4Everyone in the city prayed that these visions might be a good sign.

Jason Attacks Jerusalem

5When a false report began to spread that Antiochus had died, Jason took more than a thousand men and suddenly attacked Jerusalem. They drove back those stationed on the city walls and finally captured the city. Menelaus fled for safety to the fort, near the Temple hill, 6while Jason and his men went on slaughtering their fellow-Jews without mercy. Jason did not realize that success against one's own people is the worst kind of failure. He even considered his success a victory over enemies, rather than a defeat of his own people. 7But Jason did not take over the government. Instead he was forced to flee once again to the territory of the Ammonites, and in the end his evil plot brought him nothing but shame and disgrace, 8and he died in misery. Aretas, the ruler of the Arabs, imprisoned him; he was looked upon as a criminal and despised because he had betrayed his own people; everyone was hunting for him, and he had to run from town to town. He fled to Egypt for safety, 9then to Greece, hoping to find refuge among the Spartans, who were related to the Jews. Finally, this man, who had forced so many others to flee from their own country, died as a fugitive in a foreign land. 10Jason had killed many people and left their bodies unburied, but now his own death was unmourned. He was not given a funeral or even buried with his ancestors.

Antiochus Attacks Jerusalem

(1 Macc 1.20–63)

11When the news of what had happened in Jerusalem reached Antiochus, he thought the whole country of Judea was in revolt, and he became as furious as a wild animal. So he left Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm, 12giving his men orders to cut down without mercy everyone they met and to slaughter anyone they found hiding in the houses. 13They murdered everyone — men and women, boys and girls; even babies were butchered. 14Three days later Jerusalem had lost 80,000 people: 40,000 killed in the attack and at least that many taken away to be sold as slaves.

15But Antiochus was still not satisfied. He even dared to enter the holiest Temple in all the world, guided by Menelaus, who had become a traitor both to his religion and to his people. 16With his filthy and unholy hands, Antiochus swept away the sacred utensils and the gifts which other kings had given to increase the glory and honour of the Temple. 17He was so thrilled with his conquest that he did not realize that the Lord had let his holy Temple be defiled because the sin of the people of Jerusalem had made him angry for a while. 18If the people of Jerusalem had not been involved in so many sins, Antiochus would have been punished immediately and prevented from taking such a foolish action. He would have suffered the same fate as Heliodorus, who was sent by King Seleucus to inspect the treasury. 19But the Lord did not choose his people for the sake of his Temple; he established his Temple for the sake of his people. 20So the Temple shared in the people's suffering but also later shared in their prosperity. The Lord abandoned it when he became angry, but restored it when his anger had cooled down.

Another Attack against Jerusalem

21Antiochus took 62 tonnes of silver from the Temple and hurried off to Antioch. Such was his arrogance that he felt he could make ships sail across dry land or troops march across the sea. 22He appointed governors to cause trouble for the people. In Jerusalem he placed Philip, a man from Phrygia who was more evil than Antiochus himself. 23At Mount Gerizim he placed Andronicus. In addition to these, there was Menelaus, who ill-treated his fellow-Jews far worse than the governors did. Antiochus hated the Jews so much 24that he sent an army of 22,000 mercenary troops from Mysia to Jerusalem under the command of a man named Apollonius, with orders to kill every man in the city and to sell the women and boys as slaves. 25Apollonius arrived in Jerusalem, pretending to be on a peace mission. Then on a Sabbath, when all the Jews were observing the day of rest, he led his troops, who were fully armed, in a parade outside the city. 26Suddenly he commanded his men to kill everyone who had come out to see them. They rushed into the city and murdered a great many people.

27But Judas Maccabaeus and about nine others escaped into the barren mountains, where they lived like wild animals. In order not to defile themselves, they ate only the plants which they found growing there.