Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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The Rededication of the Temple
(1 Maccabees 4.36–61)
1 Judas Maccabeus and his followers,
under the leadership
of the Lord, recaptured the Temple
and the city of Jerusalem.
2 They
tore down the altars which foreigners
had set up in the marketplace
and destroyed the other places of
worship that had been built.
3 They
purified the Temple and built a new
altar. Then, with new fire started by
striking flint, they offered sacrifice
for the first time in two years,
burned incense, lighted the lamps,
and set out the sacred loaves.
4 After
they had done all this, they lay face
down on the ground and prayed that
the Lord would never again let such
disasters strike them. They begged
him to be merciful when he punished
them for future sins and not
hand them over any more to barbaric,
pagan Gentiles.
5 They rededicated
the Temple on the twenty-fifth
day of the month of Kislev, the same
day of the same month on which the
Temple had been desecrated by the
Gentiles.
6 The happy celebration
lasted eight days, like the Festival of
-- --
Shelters, and the people remembered
how only a short time before,
they had spent the Festival of Shelters
wandering like wild animals in
the mountains and living in caves.
7 But now, carrying green palm
branches and sticks decorated with
ivy, they paraded around, singing
grateful praises to him who had
brought about the purification of his
own Temple.
8 Everyone agreed that
the entire Jewish nation should celebrate
this festival each year.
Ptolemy Macron Commits Suicide
9 The days of Antiochus Epiphanes
had come to an end.
10 Now we
will tell about Antiochus Eupator,
the son of this godless man, and give
a summary of the evil effects of his
wars. note
11 When he became king he appointed
a man by the name of Lysias
to be in charge of the affairs of state
and to be chief governor of Greater
Syria,
12 replacing Ptolemy Macron,
who had been the first governor to
treat the Jews fairly. Macron had established
peaceful relations with
them in an attempt to make up for
the wrongs they had suffered.
13 As a
result, the King's Friends went to
Eupator and accused Macron of
treachery, because he had abandoned
the island of Cyprus, which
King Philometor of Egypt had
placed under his command, and had
gone over to Antiochus Epiphanes.
In fact, everyone called Macron a
traitor. No longer able to maintain
the respect that his office demanded,
he commited suicide by taking poison.
Judas Maccabeus Defeats the Idumeans
(1 Maccabees 5.1–8)
14 When Gorgias became governor
of Idumea, he kept a force of mercenaries
and attacked the Jews at every
opportunity.
15 Not only this, but
the Idumeans themselves controlled
certain strategic fortresses and were
constantly harassing the Jews. They
welcomed those who fled from Jerusalem
and did everything they could
to keep the country in a perpetual
state of war.
16 So Judas Maccabeus
and his men, after offering prayers
for God's help, rushed out and made
a vigorous attack against the Idumean
fortresses.
17 They beat back
those who were defending the walls
and captured the fortresses, killing
everyone they found, a total of about
20,000 people.
18 About 9,000 of the enemy, however,
managed to take refuge in two
easily defended forts, with everything
they needed to withstand a
siege.
19 Judas had to go on to some
other places in the country, where
he was more urgently needed, but he
left behind Simon and Joseph, together
with Zacchaeus and his men.
This force was large enough to continue
the siege,
20 but some of Simon's
men were greedy, and when
they were offered 140 pounds of silver,
they let some of the enemy escape
from the forts.
21 When Judas
heard what had happened, he called
together the leaders of his troops
and accused those men of selling
their brothers by setting their enemies
free to fight against them.
22 Then he executed the traitors and
immediately captured the two forts.
23 Judas was always successful in
battle, and in his assault on those
two forts he killed more than 20,000
men.
Judas Defeats Timothy
24 Timothy, who had been defeated
by the Jews once before, had gathered
a large number of cavalry from
Asia and a tremendous force of mercenary
troops and was now advancing
to take Judea by armed attack.
25 But as the enemy forces were approaching,
Judas and his men
prayed to God. They put on sackcloth,
threw dirt on their heads,
26 and lay face downward on the
steps of the altar, begging God to
help them by fighting against their
enemies, as he had promised in his
Law.
27 When they had finished praying,
they took up their weapons, went
-- --
out a good distance from Jerusalem,
and stopped for the night not far
from the enemy.
28 At daybreak the
two armies joined in battle. The
Jewish forces depended upon both
their bravery and their trust in the
Lord for victory, while the enemy relied
only on their ability to fight
fiercely.
29 When the fighting was at
its worst, the enemy saw five handsome
men riding on horses with gold
bridles and leading the Jewish
forces.
30 These five men surrounded
Judas, protecting him with their own
armor and showering the enemy
with arrows and thunderbolts. The
enemy forces then became so confused
and bewildered that they
broke ranks, and the Jews cut them
to pieces,
31 slaughtering 20,500 infantry
and 600 cavalry.
32 Timothy himself escaped to the
strongly defended fort of Gezer,
where his brother Chaereas was in
command.
33 Judas and his men besieged
the fort for four days with
great enthusiasm,
34 but the men inside
trusted to the security of their
positions and shouted all sorts of
terrible insults against the Jews and
their God.
35 At dawn on the fifth
day, twenty of Judas' men, burning
with anger at these insults, bravely
climbed the wall and with savage
fury chopped down everyone they
met.
36 At the same time, others
climbed the walls on the other side
of the fort and set the towers on fire.
Many of the enemy were burned to
death as the flames spread. A third
force broke down the gates and let
in the rest of Judas' men to capture
the city.
37 Timothy had hidden in a
cistern, but they killed him, as well
as his brother Chaereas and Apollophanes.
38 When it was over, the Jews celebrated
by singing hymns and songs
of thanksgiving to the Lord, who had
shown them great kindness and had
given them victory.
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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