1
Now Maccabeus and his company, the Lord guiding them, recovered the temple and the city;
2
but the altars which the heathen had built in the open street, and also the chapels, they pulled down.
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And, having cleansed the temple, they made another altar; and, striking stones, they took fire out of them, and offered a sacrifice after two years, and set forth incense and lights and showbread.
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When that was done, they fell flat down and besought the Lord that they might come no more into such troubles; but if they sinned any more against Him, that He Himself would chasten them with mercy, and that they might not be delivered unto the blasphemous and barbarous nations.
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Now upon the same day that the strangers profaned the temple, on the very same day it was cleansed again, even the five and twentieth day of the same month, which is Chislev.
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And they kept the eight days with gladness, as in the Feast of the Tabernacles, remembering that not long before they had held the Feast of the Tabernacles, when they wandered in the mountains and dens like beasts.
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Therefore they bore branches and fair boughs and palms also, and sang psalms unto Him that had given them good success in cleansing His place.
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They ordained also by a common statute and decree that every year those days should be kept by the whole nation of the Jews.
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And this was the end of Antiochus, called Epiphanes.
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Now will we declare the acts of Antiochus Eupator, who was the son of this wicked man, gathering briefly the calamities of the wars.
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So when he had come to the crown, he set one Lysias over the affairs of his realm, and appointed him chief governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia.
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For Ptolemy, who was called Macron, choosing rather to do justice unto the Jews for the wrong that had been done unto them, endeavored to continue peace with them.
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Thereupon, being accused by the king's friends before Eupator and called traitor at every word because he had left Cyprus, which Philometor had committed unto him, and departed to Antiochus Epiphanes, and seeing that he was in no honorable position, he was so discouraged that he poisoned himself and died.
14
But when Gorgias was governor of the strongholds, he hired soldiers and nourished war continually against the Jews;
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and moreover the Idumeans, having gotten into their hands the most commodious strongholds, kept the Jews occupied and, receiving those who were banished from Jerusalem, they went about to nourish war.
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Then those who were with Maccabeus made supplication and besought God that He would be their helper; and so they ran with violence upon the strongholds of the Idumeans,
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and, assaulting them strongly, they won the fortresses, and kept off all who fought upon the wall and slew all who fell into their hands, and killed no fewer than twenty thousand.
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And because certain ones, who were no less than nine thousand, had fled together into two very strong castles, having all manner of things necessary to sustain the siege,
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Maccabeus left Simon and Joseph, and Zaccheus also and those who were with him, who were enough to besiege them, and departed himself unto those places which needed his help more.
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Now those who were with Simon, being led by covetousness, were persuaded for money by certain of those who were in the castle, and took seventy thousand drachmas and let some of them escape.
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But when it was told to Maccabeus what was done, he called the governors of the people together, and accused those men of having sold their brethren for money, and set their enemies free to fight against them.
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So he slew those who were found traitors, and immediately took the two castles.
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And having good success with his weapons in all things he took in hand, he slew in the two strongholds more than twenty thousand.
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Now Timothy, whom the Jews had overcome before, when he had gathered a great multitude of foreign forces and horses out of Asia not a few, came as though he would take Judea by force of arms.
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But when he drew near, those who were with Maccabeus turned to pray unto God, and sprinkled earth upon their heads, and girded their loins with sackcloth,
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and fell down at the foot of the altar, and besought Him to be merciful to them, and to be an enemy to their enemies and an adversary to their adversaries, as the law declareth.
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So after the prayer they took their weapons and went on further from the city; and when they drew near to their enemies, they kept to themselves.
28
Now the sun being newly risen, they joined both together, the one part having, together with their virtue, their refuge also in the Lord as a pledge of their success and victory, the other side making their rage leader of their battle.
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But when the battle waxed strong, there appeared unto the enemies from heaven five comely men upon horses with bridles of gold, and two of them led the Jews,
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and took Maccabeus between them, and covered him on every side with their weapons and kept him safe, but shot arrows and lightnings against the enemies so that, being confounded with blindness and full of trouble, they were killed.
31
And there were slain of footmen twenty thousand and five hundred, and six hundred horsemen.
32
As for Timothy himself, he fled into a very strong fortress called Gazara, where Chaereas was governor.
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But those who were with Maccabeus laid siege against the fortress courageously four days.
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And those who were within, trusting in the strength of the place, blasphemed exceedingly and uttered wicked words.
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Nevertheless, upon the fifth day early, twenty young men of Maccabeus' company, inflamed with anger because of the blasphemies, assaulted the wall manfully and with fierce courage killed all that they met withal.
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Others likewise, ascending after them while they were busied with those who were within, burned the towers and, kindling fires, burned the blasphemers alive. And others broke open the gates and, having received in the rest of the army, took the city,
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and killed Timothy, who was hidden in a certain pit, and Chaereas his brother, with Apollophanes.
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When this was done, they praised the Lord with psalms and thanksgiving, who had done such great things for Israel and given them the victory.