1
In the year one hundred and forty- nine, Judas understood that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea,
2
And with him Lysias the regent, who had charge over the affairs of the realm, having with him a hundred and ten thousand footmen, five thousand horse- men, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with hooks.
3
Menelaus also joined himself with them: and with great deceitfulness besought Antiochus, not for the welfare of his country, but in hopes that he should be appointed chief ruler.
4
But the King of kings stirred up the mind of Antiochus against the sinner, and upon Lysias suggesting that he was the cause of all the evils, he commanded (as the custom is with them) that he should be apprehended and put to death in the same place.
5
Now there was in that place a tower fifty cubits high, having a heap of ashes on every side: this had a prospect steep down.
6
From thence he commanded the sacrilegious wretch to be thrown down into the ashes, all men thrusting him forward unto death.
7
And by such a law it happened that Menelaus the transgressor of the law was put to death: not having so much as burial in the earth.
8
And indeed very justly, for insomuch as he had committed many sins against the altar of God, the fire and ashes of which were holy: he was condemned to die in ashes.
9
But the king, with his mind full of rage, came on to shew himself worse to the Jews than his father was.
10
Which, when Judas understood, he commanded the people to call upon the Lord day and night, that as he had always done, so now also he would help them: