18
they wrote to him on bronze tablets to renew with him the friendship and alliance that they had established with his brothers Judas and Jonathan.
19
And these were read before the assembly in Jerusalem.
20
This is a copy of the letter that the Spartans sent: "The rulers and the city of the Spartans to the high priest Simon and to the elders and the priests and the rest of the Jewish people, our brothers, greetings.
21
The envoys who were sent to our people have told us about your glory and honor, and we rejoiced at their coming.
22
We have recorded what they said in our public decrees, as follows, "Numenius son of Antiochus and Antipater son of Jason, envoys of the Jews, have come to us to renew their friendship with us.
23
It has pleased our people to receive these men with honor and to put a copy of their words in the public archives, so that the people of the Spartans may have a record of them. And they have sent a copy of this to the high priest Simon.' "
24
After this Simon sent Numenius to Rome with a large gold shield weighing one thousand minas, to confirm the alliance with the Romans.
25
When the people heard these things they said, "How shall we thank Simon and his sons?
26
For he and his brothers and the house of his father have stood firm; they have fought and repulsed Israel's enemies and established its freedom."
27
So they made a record on bronze tablets and put it on pillars on Mount Zion. This is a copy of what they wrote: "On the eighteenth day of Elul, in the one hundred seventy-second year, which is the third year of the great high priest Simon,
28
in Asaramel, in the great assembly of the priests and the people and the rulers of the nation and the elders of the country, the following was proclaimed to us: