Nicanor’s Boast and Judas’s Dream
1Nicanor got word that Judas and his men were in the country around Samaria, and he resolved to fall on them on the day of rest, when he would run no risk at all. 2The Jews who had been forced to go along with him protested, “Do not destroy them in so savage and barbarous a way! Give glory to the day that the one who watches all things has singled out for honor with holiness.” 3The thrice-accursed man asked whether in heaven there was a sovereign who had given orders to keep the Sabbath day. 4When they declared, “There is! The Lord who lives is himself sovereign in heaven — he who ordered the seventh day to be observed,” 5the other replied, “I too am a sovereign — on earth — and I order arms to be taken up and the king’s business carried out.” Yet he did not manage to carry out his cruel purpose. 6Nicanor, carrying his head high in all his boastfulness, had made up his mind to raise a public trophy over Judas and his men. 7But Maccabeus kept trusting without a break, and with all hope, that he would obtain help from the Lord. 8He urged those with him not to take fright at the nations’ onslaught, and bade them call to mind the help heaven had given them before, and look now for the victory that would be theirs from the Almighty. 9He gave them courage from the law and from the prophets, reminding them too of the contests they had fought through to the end, and so made them readier still. 10Having fired their spirits, he gave his orders, pointing out at the same time the faithlessness of the nations and their breaking of oaths. 11He equipped every man, not with the protection of shields and spears so much as with the encouragement of good words; and he delighted them all by telling them a dream worthy of belief, a kind of waking vision. 12This was his vision. Onias, the former high priest — a man noble and good, reserved in his bearing, mild in his ways, apt in his speech, who from boyhood had practiced every quality that belongs to virtue — was stretching out his hands and praying for the whole community of the Jews. 13Then there appeared in the same way a man who stood out for his gray hair and his glory, and the majesty about him was wondrous and utterly magnificent. 14Onias then spoke up and said, “This is the man who loves his brothers and prays much on behalf of the people and of the holy city — Jeremiah, God’s prophet.” 15Then Jeremiah extended his right hand and gave Judas a golden sword; as he handed it over he spoke to him thus: 16“Receive the holy sword, God’s gift; with it you will shatter the adversaries.” 17Heartened by Judas’s words, so fine and so able to stir men to valor and to put manhood into the souls of the young, they resolved not to wage a campaign but to hurl themselves nobly into the attack, and, grappling with the enemy in all manly courage, to decide the issue, because the city, the holy place, and the temple stood in danger. 18For their fear for wives and children, and for brothers and kinsfolk too, weighed less with them; the greatest and foremost fear was for the consecrated temple. 19Those shut up in the city felt no small anguish either, troubled as they were about the clash out in the open.
The Defeat of Nicanor
20All were now awaiting the decision that was to come; the enemy had already closed in, their army drawn up in battle order, the beasts posted at a well-chosen point and the cavalry ranged on the wings. 21Maccabeus saw the massed troops at hand, the varied array of their weapons, and the ferocity of the beasts; he lifted his hands to heaven and invoked the wonder-working Lord, knowing that victory does not come through weapons, but that he secures it for the worthy as he himself decides. 22This was how he prayed: “You, Master, sent your angel in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judea, and he struck down as many as one hundred and eighty-five thousand from Sennacherib’s camp. 23And now, Sovereign of the heavens, send before us a good angel, to strike fear and trembling. 24By the greatness of your arm, let those who come blaspheming against your holy people be stricken with terror.” With that, he ended. 25Nicanor and his men came on with trumpets and war chants, 26but Judas and his men engaged the enemy with invocation and prayers. 27With their hands they fought, and with their hearts they prayed to God; they laid out no fewer than thirty-five thousand, and they rejoiced greatly in God’s manifestation. 28When the fighting was done and they were turning back with joy, they found Nicanor fallen in all his armor. 29Amid shouting and commotion they blessed the Sovereign in the ancestral tongue. 30Then the man who in everything, body and soul, had been the foremost fighter for his fellow citizens, who had kept the goodwill of his youth toward his countrymen, gave orders to sever Nicanor’s head and his hand together with the shoulder, and to carry them to Jerusalem. 31When he got there, he called his countrymen together, stood the priests before the altar, and sent for the men of the citadel. 32He displayed the head of the vile Nicanor, and the hand of the blasphemer, which he had stretched out in his boasting against the Almighty’s holy house. 33He had the impious Nicanor’s tongue cut out and declared he would feed it to the birds bit by bit, and that the wages of his folly should be hung up facing the temple. 34And all of them, looking toward heaven, blessed the Lord who manifests himself, saying, “Blessed is the one who has preserved his own place from defilement!” 35He fastened Nicanor’s head to hang from the citadel, a sign plain and visible to all of the Lord’s help. 36By common decree they all resolved never to let this day pass unmarked, but to hold as a marked day the thirteenth of the twelfth month — Adar, as the Syrian language calls it — one day before the day of Mordecai.
The Author’s Closing Words
37Such, then, was the outcome with Nicanor. From those days on the city has been held by the Hebrews, and so I too will let my account come to rest here. 38And if it is well done and apt in its composition, that is just what I wanted; but if it is plain and middling, that was all that lay within my reach. 39For drinking wine on its own is harmful, and so, in turn, is drinking water on its own; but wine blended with water is sweet and brings a delightful grace. In the same way, the craftsmanship of a narrative pleases the ears of whoever takes up the composition. And here let the end be.
