37
but said, "Let us all die in our innocency. Heaven and earth shall testify for us that you put us to death wrongfully."
38
So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath, and they slew them, with their wives and children and their cattle, to the number of a thousand people.
39
Now when Mattathias and his friends learned of this, they mourned for them sorely.
40
And one of them said to another, "If we all do as our brethren have done, and fight not for our lives and laws against the heathen, they will now quickly root us out of the earth."
41
At that time therefore they decreed, saying, "Whosoever shall come to do battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him; neither will we all die, as our brethren who were murdered in the secret places."
Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.