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For many days they attacked it they constructed siege engines, but the besieged made a sortie and burned these, and they fought bravely.īattle of Beth-zechariah. d 19And so Judas planned to destroy them, and assembled the people to besiege them.Ģ0So in the one hundred and fiftieth year * they assembled and besieged the citadel, for which purpose he constructed platforms and siege engines.Ģ1But some of the besieged escaped, and some renegade Israelites joined them.Ģ2They went to the king and said: “How long will you fail to do justice and to avenge our kindred?Ģ3We agreed to serve your father and to follow his orders and obey his edicts.Ģ4And for this our own people have become our enemies they have put to death as many of us as they could find and have seized our inheritances.Ģ5They have acted aggressively not only against us, but throughout their whole territory.Ģ6Look! Today they have besieged the citadel in Jerusalem in order to capture it, and they have fortified the sanctuary and Beth-zur.Ģ7Unless you act quickly to prevent them, they will do even worse things than these, and you will not be able to stop them.”Ģ8 e When the king heard this he was enraged, and he called together all his Friends, the officers of his army, and the commanders of the cavalry.Ģ9Mercenary forces also came to him from other kingdoms and from the islands of the seas.ģ0His army numbered a hundred thousand footsoldiers, twenty thousand cavalry, and thirty-two elephants trained for war.ģ1They passed through Idumea and camped before Beth-zur. 18Those in the citadel were hemming Israel in around the sanctuary, continually trying to harm them and to strengthen the Gentiles. * 17When Lysias learned that the king was dead, he set up the king’s son Antiochus, * whom he had reared as a child, to be king in his place and he gave him the title Eupator. Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed.ĩThere he remained many days, assailed by waves of grief, for he thought he was going to die.ġ0So he called in all his Friends and said to them: “Sleep has departed from my eyes, and my heart sinks from anxiety.ġ1I said to myself: ‘Into what tribulation have I come, and in what floods of sorrow am I now! Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule.’ġ2But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of silver and gold that were in it, and for no cause gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed.ġ3I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.”ġ4Then he summoned Philip, one of his Friends, and put him in charge of his whole kingdom.ġ5He gave him his diadem, his robe, and his signet ring, so that he might guide the king’s son Antiochus and bring him up to be king.ġ6So King Antiochus died there in the one hundred and forty-ninth year. bĨWhen the king heard this news, he was astonished and very much shaken.

So he fled and in great dismay withdrew from there to return to Babylon.ĥWhile he was in Persia, a messenger brought him news that the armies that had gone into the land of Judah had been routed Ħthat Lysias had gone at first with a strong army and been driven back that the people of Judah had grown strong by reason of the arms, wealth, and abundant spoils taken from the armies they had cut down ħthat they had pulled down the abomination which he had built upon the altar in Jerusalem and that they had surrounded with high walls both the sanctuary, as it had been before, and his city of Beth-zur. But he could not do so, because his plan became known to the people of the cityĤwho rose up in battle against him. 1 a As King Antiochus passed through the eastern provinces, he heard that in Persia there was a city, Elam, * famous for its wealth in silver and gold,Ģand that its temple was very rich, containing gold helmets, breastplates, and weapons left there by the first king of the Greeks, Alexander, son of Philip, king of Macedon.ģHe went therefore and tried to capture and loot the city.