First Book of Maccabees 9

¹ Demetrius heard that Nicanor and his army had fallen in battle, and he sent Bacchides and Alcimus a second time into the land of Judah, and with them the right wing of his army.

² They took the road to Galilee and besieged Mesaloth in Arbela,[*a] and captured it, putting many people to death.

³ In the first month of the year one hundred and fifty-two they set up camp before Jerusalem;

⁴ they then moved on, making their way to Beerzeth[*b] with twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse.

⁵ Judas lay in camp at Elasa, with three thousand picked men.

⁶ When they saw the huge size of the enemy forces they were terrified, and many slipped out of the camp, until no more than eight hundred of the force were left.

⁷ When Judas saw that his army had melted away and that attack was imminent, he was aghast, for he had no time to rally them.

⁸ Yet, dismayed as he was, he said to those who were left, ‘Up! Let us face the enemy; we may yet have the strength to fight them.’

⁹ His men tried to dissuade him, declaring, ‘We have no strength for anything but to escape with our lives this time; then we can come back with our brothers to fight them; by ourselves we are too few’.

¹⁰ ‘God forbid’ Judas retorted ‘that I should do such a thing as run away from them! If our time has come, at least let us die like men for our countrymen, and leave nothing to tarnish our reputation.’

¹¹ The enemy forces then marched out of the camp, and the Jews took up their position in readiness to engage them. The cavalry was ordered into two squadrons; the slingers and archers marched in the van of the army with the shock-troops, all stout fighters;

¹² Bacchides was on the right wing. The phalanx advanced from between the two squadrons, sounding the trumpets; the men on Judas’ side blew their trumpets also,

¹³ and the earth shook with the noise of the armies. The engagement lasted from morning until evening.

¹⁴ Judas saw that Bacchides and the main strength of his army lay on the right; all the stout-hearted rallied to him,

¹⁵ and they broke the right wing and pursued them to the furthest foothills of the range.

¹⁶ But when the Syrians on the left wing saw that the right had been broken, they turned and followed hot on the heels of Judas and his men to take them in the rear.

¹⁷ The fight became desperate, and there were many casualties on both sides.

¹⁸ Judas himself fell, and the remnant fled.

¹⁹ Jonathan and Simon took up their brother Judas and buried him in his ancestral tomb at Modein.

²⁰ All Israel wept and mourned him deeply and for many days they repeated this dirge,

²¹ ‘What a downfall for the strong man, the man who saved Israel single-handed!’

²² The other deeds of Judas, the battles he fought, the exploits he performed, and all his titles to greatness have not been recorded; but they were very many.

²³ After the death of Judas the renegades came out of hiding throughout Israel and all the evil-doers reappeared.

²⁴ At that time there was a severe famine, and the country went over to their side.

²⁵ Bacchides deliberately chose the enemies of religion and set them up as governors of the country.

²⁶ These traced and searched out the friends of Judas and brought them before Bacchides, who took revenge on them and humiliated them.

²⁷ A terrible oppression began in Israel; there had been nothing like it since the disappearance of prophecy among them.

²⁸ Then all the friends of Judas came together and said to Jonathan,

²⁹ ‘Since your brother Judas died, there has been no one like him to head the resistance to the enemy, Bacchides and those who hate our nation.

³⁰ Accordingly, we have today chosen you to take his place as our ruler and leader and to fight our campaigns.’

³¹ From that day Jonathan accepted the leadership and took over the command from his brother Judas.

³² Bacchides, when he heard the news, made plans to kill Jonathan.

³³ But this became known to Jonathan, his brother Simon and all his supporters, and they took refuge in the desert of Tekoa, camping by the water of the cistern at Asphar.

³⁴ (Bacchides came to know of this on the sabbath day, and he too crossed the Jordan with his entire army.)

³⁵ Jonathan sent his brother, who was in charge of the convoy, to request his friends the Nabataeans to store their considerable baggage for them.

³⁶ But the sons of Jambri from Medeba[*c] raided them, captured John and everything he had and made off with their prize.

³⁷ After this had happened it was reported to Jonathan and his brother Simon that the sons of Jambri were celebrating a great wedding, and were escorting the bride, a daughter of one of the great notables of Canaan, from Nadabath with a large retinue.

³⁸ Remembering the bloody end of their brother John, they went up and hid under cover of the mountain.

³⁹ As they were keeping watch, there came into sight a noisy procession with a great deal of baggage, and the bridegroom, with his groomsmen and his family, came out to meet it with tambourines and a band, and military display.

⁴⁰ The Jews rushed down on them from their ambush and killed them, inflicting heavy casualties; the survivors escaped to the mountain, leaving their entire baggage train to be captured.

⁴¹ And so the wedding was turned into mourning and the music of their band into a dirge.

⁴² Having in this way avenged in full the blood of their brother they returned to the marshes of the Jordan.

⁴³ As soon as Bacchides heard this, he came on the Sabbath day with a considerable force to the steep banks of the Jordan.

⁴⁴ Jonathan said to his men, ‘Up! Let us fight for our lives, for today is not like yesterday and the day before.

⁴⁵ You can see, we shall have to fight on our front and to our rear, we have the waters of the Jordan on one side, the marsh and scrub on the other, and we have no line of withdrawal.

⁴⁶ This is the moment to call on heaven for your deliverance from the hand of our enemies.’

⁴⁷ The engagement was begun by Jonathan, who aimed a blow at Bacchides, but the Syrian disengaged himself and withdrew,

⁴⁸ whereupon Jonathan and his men leapt into the Jordan and swam to the other bank, but the enemy did not cross the Jordan in pursuit.

⁴⁹ That day Bacchides lost about a thousand men.

⁵⁰ Bacchides returned to Jerusalem and built strongholds in Judaea, the fortress in Jericho, Emmaus, Beth-horon, Bethel, Timnath, Pharathon and Tephon, with high walls and barred gates,

⁵¹ and stationed a garrison in each of them to harass Israel.

⁵² He also fortified the town of Bethzur, Gezer and the Citadel, and placed troops in them with supplies of provisions.

⁵³ He took the sons of the leading men of the country as hostages, and had them placed under guard in the Citadel of Jerusalem.

⁵⁴ In the year one hundred and fifty-three, in the second month, Alcimus ordered the demolition of the wall of the inner court of the sanctuary, destroying the work of the prophets.[*d] Alcimus had just begun the demolition

⁵⁵ when he suffered a stroke, and his work was interrupted. His mouth became obstructed, and his paralysis made him incapable of speaking at all or giving directions to his household;

⁵⁶ it was not long before he died in great agony.

⁵⁷ When Bacchides saw that Alcimus was dead he returned to the king; and the land of Judah was left in peace for two years.

⁵⁸ All the renegades then agreed on a plan. ‘Now is the time,’ they said ‘while Jonathan and his supporters are living in peace and are full of confidence, for us to bring back Bacchides; he can arrest them all in one night.’

⁵⁹ So they went to him and reached an understanding.

⁶⁰ Bacchides at once set out with a large force, and sent secret instructions to all his allies in Judaea to seize Jonathan and his supporters. But they were unable to do this because their plan became known,

⁶¹ and Jonathan and his men arrested some fifty of the men of the country who were ringleaders in the plot, and put them to death.

⁶² Jonathan and Simon then retired with their partisans into the wilderness to Bethbasi; they rebuilt the ruinous parts of the place and fortified it.

⁶³ When Bacchides heard this, he mustered his whole force and notified his adherents in Judaea.

⁶⁴ He then proceeded to lay siege to Bethbasi, attacking it for many days and constructing siege-engines.

⁶⁵ But Jonathan, leaving his brother Simon in the town, broke out into the countryside with a handful of men.

⁶⁶ He attacked Odomera and his brothers, and the sons of Phasiron in their tents; and these went over to the attack, joining forces with him.

⁶⁷ Meanwhile Simon and his people made a sortie from the town and set fire to the siege-engines.

⁶⁸ Taking the offensive against Bacchides, they routed him. He was greatly disconcerted to find that his plan and his assault had come to nothing,

⁶⁹ and vented his anger on those renegades who had induced him to enter the country, putting many of them to death; then he decided to return to his own country.

⁷⁰ Discovering this, Jonathan sent envoys to negotiate peace-terms and the release of prisoners with him.

⁷¹ Bacchides agreed to this, accepting his proposals and swearing never to seek occasion to harm him all the days of his life.

⁷² After surrendering to Jonathan the prisoners he had earlier taken in the land of Judah, he turned about and withdrew to his own country, and never again came near their frontiers.

⁷³ The sword no longer hung over Israel, and Jonathan settled in Michmash, where he began to judge the people and to rid Israel of the godless.