8
and burned the gate and shed innocent blood. We besought the Lord and we were heard, and we offered sacrifice and cereal offering, and we lighted the lamps and we set out the loaves.
9
And now see that you keep the feast of booths in the month of Chislev, in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year.
10
Those in Jerusalem and those in Judea and the senate and Judas, To Aristobulus, who is of the family of the anointed priests, teacher of Ptolemy the king, and to the Jews in Egypt, Greeting, and good health.
11
Having been saved by God out of grave dangers we thank him greatly for taking our side against the king.
12
For he drove out those who fought against the holy city.
13
For when the leader reached Persia with a force that seemed irresistible, they were cut to pieces in the temple of Nanea by a deception employed by the priests of Nanea.
14
For under pretext of intending to marry her, Antiochus came to the place together with his friends, to secure most of its treasures as a dowry.
15
When the priests of the temple of Nanea had set out the treasures and Antiochus had come with a few men inside the wall of the sacred precinct, they closed the temple as soon as he entered it.
16
Opening the secret door in the ceiling, they threw stones and struck down the leader and his men, and dismembered them and cut off their heads and threw them to the people outside.
17
Blessed in every way be our God, who has brought judgment upon those who have behaved impiously.
18
Since on the twenty-fifth day of Chislev we shall celebrate the purification of the temple, we thought it necessary to notify you, in order that you also may celebrate the feast of booths and the feast of the fire given when Nehemiah, who built the temple and the altar, offered sacrifices.