9
And now see that you keep the festival of booths in the month of Chislev, in the one hundred eighty-eighth year.
10
The people of Jerusalem and of Judea and the senate and Judas, To Aristobulus, who is of the family of the anointed priests, teacher of King Ptolemy, and to the Jews in Egypt, Greetings 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
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 the goddess Nanea.
14
On the 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 a secret door in the ceiling, they threw stones and struck down the leader and his men; they 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 on 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 festival of booths and the festival of the fire given when Nehemiah, who built the temple and the altar, offered sacrifices.
19
For when our ancestors were being led captive to Persia, the pious priests of that time took some of the fire of the altar and secretly hid it in the hollow of a dry cistern, where they took such precautions that the place was unknown to anyone.