The End of King Antiochus
1King Antiochus was making his way through the upper provinces, and he heard that Elymais in Persia was a city of renown, rich in silver and gold, 2and that the temple in it was exceedingly wealthy: there were coverings of gold in it, breastplates, and weapons left there by the Macedonian king Alexander son of Philip, the first who reigned among the Greeks. 3He came and set about seizing the city and plundering it, but it was beyond him, because word of it had reached the people of the city. 4They stood against him in battle, and he fled. He departed from there in bitter distress, to return to Babylon. 5Then someone came to him in Persia with the news that the armies that had marched into the land of Judah had been routed; 6that Lysias, marching out at the head of a strong force, had been turned back before them; that weapons, forces, and a wealth of spoil taken from the armies they had cut down had made them strong; 7that they had pulled down the abomination he had built on the altar in Jerusalem; that they had ringed the sanctuary with high walls, as it once was, and his town of Beth-zur too. 8When the king heard these reports, he was stunned and badly shaken. He took to his bed, sick with grief, because events had not gone for him as he had purposed. 9He lay there many days, because a deep grief kept breaking over him afresh, and he reckoned that he was dying. 10He summoned all his Friends and told them, “Sleep has fled from my eyes, and my heart has given way under the weight of care. 11I said in my heart, ‘What affliction I have come to, and what a great surge of trouble I am caught in now — I, who was kind and well loved while I held power!’ 12But now I remember the wrongs I did in Jerusalem. I carried off every vessel of silver and gold that was in her, and I sent to wipe out those who lived in Judah, for no reason at all. 13I know it is on account of these things that these evils have found me. And here I am, perishing of deep grief in a foreign land.” 14Next he summoned Philip, one of his Friends, and placed him over his entire kingdom. 15He gave him his diadem, his robe, and his signet ring, charging him to take his son Antiochus in hand and rear him for the throne. 16There King Antiochus died, in the one hundred and forty-ninth year. 17Once Lysias learned the king had died, he installed the king’s son Antiochus on the throne — the one he had reared from boyhood — and gave him the name Eupator.
Judas Besieges the Citadel
18Now the men of the citadel kept Israel hemmed in around the holy place. They were forever seeking ways to do harm, and they were a mainstay for the nations. 19Judas resolved to destroy them, and he called all the people together to lay siege to them. 20They assembled together and besieged the citadel in the one hundred and fiftieth year, and he set up emplacements for artillery, and siege engines. 21But some of the besieged broke out of the blockade, and some ungodly men of Israel attached themselves to them. 22They made their way to the king and said, “How much longer will you delay doing justice and avenging our brothers? 23We were glad to serve your father, to live by what he said, and to follow his commands. 24For this the men of our own people have laid siege to the citadel and have turned against us. Every one of us they came upon was put to death, and our inheritances were plundered. 25And it is not against us alone that they have stretched out their hand, but against the whole of their territory as well. 26Look: this very day they have encamped against the citadel in Jerusalem to capture it, and the sanctuary and Beth-zur they have fortified. 27If you do not forestall them quickly, they will go on to greater things than these, and you will not be able to master them.”
The Battle of Beth-zechariah
28The king was enraged when he heard it. He gathered all his Friends, the commanders of his forces, and the men in charge of the cavalry. 29Mercenary forces came to him as well, from other kingdoms and from the islands of the seas. 30His forces numbered one hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants seasoned in war. 31They came through Idumea and encamped against Beth-zur, and for many days they fought. They built siege engines; but those inside came out, set them ablaze, and fought like men. 32Then Judas moved away from the citadel and encamped at Beth-zechariah, facing the king’s camp. 33The king rose at first light and sent his whole camp off at a charge along the road to Beth-zechariah. His forces made ready for battle and sounded the trumpets. 34They showed the elephants the blood of grape and mulberry to rouse them for the fight. 35They distributed the beasts among the phalanxes. Beside each elephant they stationed a thousand men in chain mail, with bronze helmets on their heads, and five hundred picked horsemen were assigned to each beast. 36These were in place ahead of time wherever the beast might be, and wherever it went they went with it; they never left its side. 37On them were stout wooden towers, one on each beast, roofed over and strapped on with harness; on each were four fighting men who did battle from it, and the beast’s Indian. 38The rest of the cavalry he posted on this side and that, on the two wings of the army, to harry the enemy while the phalanxes gave them cover. 39When the sun flashed on the gold and bronze shields, the mountains flashed back from them and blazed like torches of fire. 40Part of the king’s army spread out over the high hills and part over the low ground, and they advanced steadily and in good order. 41All who heard the noise of that multitude, the tramp of its marching, and the clash of its weapons trembled, for the army was very great and strong. 42Judas advanced with his army into line of battle, and six hundred men fell from the king’s army. 43Eleazar Avaran saw one of the beasts armored with royal breastplates, standing taller than all the other beasts, and he thought the king was on it. 44He gave himself up to save his people and to win for himself an everlasting name. 45He ran at it boldly, into the middle of the phalanx, killing right and left, and they fell away from him on either side. 46He slipped in under the elephant, struck at it from below, and killed it; it fell to the ground on top of him, and he died there. 47But when Judas’s men saw the might of the kingdom and the fury of its forces, they drew back from them.
Peace Sworn and Broken
48Meanwhile the troops of the king’s camp were going up to Jerusalem to confront them, and the king made camp in Judea and at Mount Zion. 49He made peace with the people of Beth-zur, and they came out of the town, because they had no provisions there to hold out under siege: the land was keeping a Sabbath. 50The king took Beth-zur and left a garrison there to hold it. 51Then he encamped against the sanctuary for many days. He set up emplacements there for artillery, and siege engines, fire-hurlers and stone-hurlers, and scorpions for shooting darts and sling-stones. 52They for their part built engines against those engines, and the fighting went on for many days. 53But the storage jars held no food, since it was the seventh year, and the people brought safe into Judea from among the nations had consumed what was left of the reserves. 54Only a few men were left in the holy place, because hunger had overpowered them, and the rest scattered, each to his own place. 55Then word reached Lysias that Philip — whom King Antiochus, while still alive, had appointed to rear his son Antiochus for the throne — 56was back from Persia and Media, together with the forces that had marched with the king, and was trying to seize control of affairs. 57He moved quickly and gave the signal to withdraw. He said to the king, to the commanders of the forces, and to the men, “We are wasting away day by day. Our food is scarce, the place we are besieging is strong, and the kingdom’s affairs weigh on us. 58So now, let us offer these men our right hand. Let us make peace with them and with their whole nation, 59and let us grant them to live by their own ordinances as before. It was over those ordinances of theirs, which we abolished, that they grew angry and did all these things.” 60The king and his officials approved the proposal. He sent to them to conclude a peace, and they took it. 61The king and the officials swore an oath to them, and on those terms they came out of the stronghold. 62But when the king entered Mount Zion and saw how strong the place was, he broke the oath he had sworn and ordered the wall all around it torn down. 63Then he set out in haste and returned to Antioch. He found Philip master of the city; he made war on him and took the city by force.
