1   About this time Antiochus undertook his second invasion of Egypt. 2   Apparitions were seen in the sky all over Jerusalem for nearly forty days: galloping horsemen in golden armour, companies of spearmen standing to arms, 3   swords unsheathed, cavalry divisions in battle order. Charges and countercharges were made on each side, shields were shaken, spears massed and javelins hurled; breastplates and golden ornaments of every kind shone brightly. 4   All men prayed that this apparition might portend good.

5   Upon a false report of Antiochus's death, Jason collected no less than a thousand men and made a surprise attack on Jerusalem. The defenders on the wall were driven back and the city was finally taken; 6   Menelaus took refuge in the citadel, and Jason continued to massacre his fellow-citizens without pity. He little knew that success against one's own kindred is the greatest of failures, and he imagined that the trophies he raised marked the defeat of enemies, not of fellow-countrymen. 7   He did not, however, gain control of the government; he gained only dishonour as the result of his plot, and returned again as a fugitive to Ammonite territory. 8   His career came to a miserable end; for, after being imprisoned by Aretas the ruler of the

Syrian oppression of the Jews Arabs, he fled from city to city, hunted by all, hated as a rebel against the laws, and detested as the executioner of his country and his fellow-citizens, and finally was driven to take refuge in Egypt. 9   In the end the man who had banished so many from their native land himself died in exile after setting sail for Sparta, where he had hoped to obtain shelter because of the Spartans' kinship with the Jews. 10   He who had cast out many to lie unburied was himself unmourned; he had no funeral of any kind, no resting-place in the grave of his ancestors.

11   When news of this reached the king, it became clear to him that Judaea was in a state of rebellion. So he set out from Egypt in savage mood, 12   took Jerusalem by storm, and ordered his troops to cut down without mercy everyone they met and to slaughter those who took refuge in the houses. 13   Young and old were murdered, women and children massacred, girls and infants butchered. 14   At the end of three days their losses had amounted to eighty thousand: forty thousand killed in action, and as many sold into slavery.

15   Not satisfied with this, the king had the audacity to enter the holiest temple on earth, guided by Menelaus, who had turned traitor both to his religion and his country. 16   He laid impious hands on the sacred vessels; his desecrating hands swept together the votive offerings which other kings had set up to enhance the splendour and fame of the shrine.

17   The pride of Antiochus passed all bounds. He did not understand that the sins of the people of Jerusalem had angered the Lord for a short time, and that this was why he left the temple to its fate. 18   If they had not already been guilty of many sinful acts, Antiochus would have fared like Heliodorus who was sent by King Seleucus to inspect the treasury; like him he would have been scourged and his insolent plan foiled at once. 19   But the Lord did not choose the nation for the sake of the sanctuary; he chose the sanctuary for the sake of the nation. 20   Therefore even the sanctuary itself first had its part in the misfortunes that overtook the nation, and afterwards shared its good fortune. It was abandoned when the Lord Almighty was angry, but restored again in all its splendour when he became reconciled.

21   Antiochus, then, carried off eighteen hundred talents from the temple and hastened back to Antioch. In his arrogance he was rash enough to think that he could make ships sail on dry land and men

Syrian oppression of the Jews walk over the sea. 22   He left commissioners behind to oppress the Hebrews: in Jerusalem Philip, by race a Phrygian, by disposition more barbarous than his master, 23   and in Mount Gerizim, Andronicus, to say nothing of Menelaus, who was more brutally overbearing to the citizens than the others. Such was the king's hostility towards the Jews that he sent Apollonius, 24   the general of the Mysian mercenaries, with an army of twenty-two thousand men, and ordered him to kill all the adult males and to sell the women and boys into slavery. 25   When Apollonius arrived at Jerusalem, he posed as a man of peace; he waited until the holy sabbath day and, finding the Jews abstaining from work, he ordered a review of his troops. 26   All who came out to see the parade he put to the sword; then, charging into the city with his soldiers, he killed a great number of people.

27   But Judas, also called Maccabaeus, with about nine others, escaped into the desert, where he and his companions lived in the mountains, fending for themselves like the wild animals. They remained there living on what vegetation they found, so as to have no share in the pollution.

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