1Now when these agreements were made, Lysias departed for the king, and the Jews turned to their farming.
2But the local governors—Timothy and Apollonius son of Gennaeus, as well as Hieronymus and Demophon, and in addition to them Nicanor the Cypriarch—would not allow them to live in security or to remain in peace.
3The people of Joppa, however, committed a great act of impiety: they invited the Jews who lived among them to board boats they had provided, along with their wives and children, as if there were no hostility toward them.
4And by a public decree of the city, when the Jews accepted the invitation—as they wished to live in peace and had no suspicion—the people of Joppa took them out to sea and drowned them, no fewer than two hundred in number.
5When Judas learned of the cruelty done to his countrymen, he gave orders to the men with him,
6and after calling upon God, the righteous judge, he attacked the murderers of his kinsmen. He set fire to the harbor by night, burned the boats, and put to the sword those who had taken refuge there.
7But since the town was shut, he withdrew, intending to return again and root out the whole community of the Joppites.
8And learning that the people of Jamnia also intended to treat the Jews living among them in the same way,
9he attacked the Jamnites by night and set fire to the harbor and the fleet, so that the glare of the light was visible in Jerusalem, two hundred and forty stadia away.
10When they had withdrawn nine stadia from there on their march against Timothy, they were attacked by Arabs, no fewer than five thousand foot soldiers and five hundred cavalry.
11After a fierce battle, Judas and his men were successful through the help of God. The defeated nomads asked Judas to make peace with them, promising to give him livestock and to help his people in other ways.
12Judas, supposing that they would indeed be useful in many ways, agreed to make peace with them. And after exchanging pledges, they departed to their tents.
13He also attacked a certain fortified city named Caspin, which was protected by earthworks, surrounded by walls, and inhabited by a mixed population of nations.
14But those inside, trusting in the strength of their walls and their supply of provisions, behaved with great insolence toward Judas and his men, reviling them and, moreover, blaspheming and saying forbidden things.
15But Judas and his men called upon the great Sovereign of the world, who in the time of Joshua threw down Jericho without battering rams or siege engines, and they charged the wall ferociously.
16And capturing the city by the will of God, they carried out an indescribable slaughter, so that the nearby lake, which was two stadia wide, appeared to be filled and flowing with blood.
17Withdrawing seven hundred and fifty stadia from there, they marched to Charax, to the Jews called Toubiani.
18But they did not find Timothy in that region, for he had already departed without accomplishing anything, though he had left a very strong garrison in a certain place.
19But Dositheus and Sosipater, two of the Maccabee’s commanders, marched out and destroyed the men left by Timothy in the stronghold, more than ten thousand of them.
20The Maccabee, for his part, organized his army by cohorts and appointed commanders over them. Then he marched against Timothy, who had with him 120,000 foot soldiers and 2,500 cavalry.
21When Timothy learned of Judas’s approach, he sent the women, the children, and the rest of the baggage ahead to a place called Carnion, for the place was hard to besiege and difficult to approach because of the narrowness of the surrounding passes.
22When Judas’s first cohort appeared, dread fell upon the enemy. Terror seized them at the manifestation of the One who sees all things, and they rushed into flight, scattering in every direction, so that they were often wounded by their own men and pierced by the points of their own swords.
23Judas pressed the pursuit vigorously, striking down the wicked, and he destroyed about thirty thousand men.
24Timothy himself fell into the hands of the men under Dositheus and Sosipater. With great cunning he begged to be released unharmed, on the grounds that he held the parents of many of them and the brothers of others, and that these would be shown no consideration if he were killed.
25When he had guaranteed with many words his pledge to restore these people unharmed, they released him for the sake of saving their kinsmen.
26Then Judas marched out to Carnion and the temple of Atargatis, where he slaughtered twenty-five thousand people.
27After their rout and destruction, he marched against Ephron, a fortified city where multitudes of people from every nation lived. Strong young men stationed before the walls fought bravely, and inside there was a great store of war engines and projectiles.
28But they called upon the Sovereign who with power shatters the might of his enemies, and they captured the city and struck down about twenty-five thousand of those inside.
29Departing from there, they marched to Scythopolis, which is six hundred stadia from Jerusalem.
30But when the Jews who lived there testified to the goodwill that the people of Scythopolis had shown them and to their kind treatment in times of misfortune,
31After giving thanks and also exhorting them to be well-disposed toward their people in the future, they arrived in Jerusalem, as the Feast of Weeks was at hand.
32But after the feast called Pentecost, they marched against Gorgias, the governor of Idumea.
33And he went out with three thousand foot soldiers and four hundred horsemen.
34And when they joined battle, a few of the Jews fell.
35But a certain Dositheus, one of Bacenor’s men, a strong man on horseback, got hold of Gorgias. Seizing his cloak, he was dragging him forcefully, intending to take the accursed man alive. But one of the Thracian horsemen charged him and slashed his shoulder, and so Gorgias escaped to Marisa.
36As the men with Esdris were fighting for a long time and growing weary, Judas called upon the Lord to appear as an ally and leader of the battle.
37Beginning the battle cry with hymns in his ancestral tongue, he launched an unexpected attack on Gorgias’s men and routed them.
38Then Judas rallied his army and came to the city of Adullam. As the seventh day was approaching, they purified themselves according to the custom and spent the Sabbath there.
39On the following day, Judas and his men came—for the task had now become necessary—to recover the bodies of the fallen and to lay them to rest with their relatives in their ancestral tombs.
40But under the tunics of each of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the Law forbids the Jews to possess. And it became clear to everyone that these men had fallen for this reason.
41Therefore they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge who makes hidden things manifest.
42They turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be completely blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, since they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
43He also took up a collection, man by man, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide a sin offering. In this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection.
44For if he were not expecting that the fallen would rise again, it would be superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.
45And since he was looking to the splendid reward reserved for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. This is why he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin.
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