Judas Maccabeus Fights for the Jews

1 Meanwhile, Judas Maccabeus and his followers were going secretly through our towns and villages, gathering a force of about 6,000 faithful Jews. 2Afterwards, they prayed:

Our Lord, we've been horribly abused by everyone! Please have pity on us and on your temple that these godless foreigners have made unfit for worship. 3Rescue Jerusalem from those enemies who have left it in ruins.

Take revenge on those murderers! 4Punish them for slaughtering innocent children and insulting you. Show how much you hate evil.

5After Judas and his troops were ready for battle, the Lord's anger toward his people turned to mercy, and the foreigners did not stand a chance. 6Judas burned towns and villages without warning; he captured fortresses and forced their troops to run for their lives. 7He liked to make these attacks after dark, and soon everyone was talking about this brave warrior.

Nicanor Attacks Judas

8When Philip, the governor, found out that Judas was winning more and more victories and slowly taking over the country, he wrote a letter to Ptolemy, the royal governor of Southwest Syria Province. The letter said, "Send someone to help me protect the government of King Antiochus."

9At once, Ptolemy chose Nicanor, one of the king's most trusted friends. He also picked Gorgias, who was a high-ranking official and an expert in war. Then Ptolemy ordered them to take an army of more than 20,000 foreign soldiers to Judea and destroy our nation.

10Antiochus owed 2,000,000 silver coins to the Romans, and Nicanor planned to raise the money by selling captured Jews as slaves. 11So he decided to charge about ten silver coins for each slave, then he sent news of the sale to the coastal towns.

Nicanor did not expect it, but God All-Powerful was about to punish him.

Judas Attacks Nicanor

12When Judas found out that Nicanor had invaded Judea, he told his army what had happened. 13Some of his troops were cowards, and others did not believe that God would punish the foreigners. And so all of them ran away. 14Others sold their property and prayed:

Our Lord, please rescue your troops from that godless Nicanor. He has already started selling us as slaves, before the battle has even begun.

15If you don't want to help us for our sake alone, then do it because of the promises you made to our ancestors. After all, you are the holy and glorious God who chose them.

16After Judas had brought together his army of 6,000 soldiers, he encouraged them by saying:

Don't be afraid and panic when you see the huge army of foreigners! They were wrong to invade our country, so fight them bravely. 17Don't ever forget how they disgraced our holy temple, or how they brought terrible troubles to Jerusalem and refused to let us follow the customs of our ancestors.

18They depend on their weapons and on heroic deeds to win battles. But we depend on God All-Powerful, who can wipe out these enemies and the whole world by simply shaking his head.

19I can recall many times when God came to the rescue of our ancestors. For example, when King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked Jerusalem, he lost 185,000 soldiers.

20On another occasion, 8,000 Jews were fighting on the side of 4,000 Macedonians who were losing a battle against the Galatians in Babylonia. God helped our troops, and they killed 120,000 enemy soldiers, then took everything of value that they wanted.

21These stories encouraged the troops and made them willing to die for their faith and their nation.

Judas now divided his army into four groups 22of 1,500 soldiers each. He and his brothers Simon, Joseph, and Jonathan each took command of one group. 23 Then he told Eleazar to read the Scriptures to the troops, and Judas ordered them to go into battle shouting, "God will help us!" Judas himself led the first group into the battle against Nicanor.

24God All-Powerful helped our forces kill more than 9,000 of Nicanor's soldiers. They wounded many more and forced the rest of them to run for their lives. 25When the fighting was over, they took the money from those who had come to buy them as slaves. Then they chased after the rest of Nicanor's army for a long way. But when evening came, they had to return, 26because it was almost time to celebrate the Sabbath.

27After the troops had collected the valuables from the dead enemy soldiers, they celebrated the Sabbath, and they praised and thanked the Lord for keeping them safe while they fought. This victory meant that God was being kind to our nation once again.

28After the Sabbath, Judas and his army shared some of their valuables with the widows, the orphans, and the torture victims. They gave the rest to their own families. 29Then everyone prayed together, begging our merciful Lord to be friendly to us.

Judas Fights Timothy and Bacchides

30Judas and his soldiers fought against the armies of Timothy and Bacchides, killing more than 20,000 enemy troops and capturing some strong hill fortresses. The soldiers gave equal shares of everything they had captured to their families, the widows, the orphans, the elderly, and the victims of torture. 31The enemy's weapons were gathered up and carefully stored where they would be ready for use, and everything else taken from the enemy was carried back to Jerusalem.

32The commander of Timothy's army was cruel and had mistreated our people, and so he was put to death.

33Then we celebrated our victory in Jerusalem, the city of our ancestors, and found Callisthenes and some other enemies hiding in a small house. They had earlier set the gates of our holy temple on fire, so we burned them alive, just as they deserved.

Nicanor Praises God

34Nicanor was a horrible man who had asked 1,000 slave traders to buy captured Jews. 35But with the Lord's help, Nicanor was defeated by the very people he most despised. In fact, Nicanor ended up throwing away his fancy uniform and sneaking away by himself like a slave on the run, until he reached the city of Antioch. He had succeeded only in destroying his own army.

36Nicanor had planned to capture the Jews of Jerusalem and sell them as slaves, so the king could pay his debt to Rome. But now Nicanor told everyone, "God defends and protects the Jews! They obey his laws, and he will never let them be defeated."