1 About the same time Antioḵos prepared his second voyage to Mitsrayim.
2 And then it came to be, that through all the city for almost forty days, there was seen horsemen running in the air in golden garments, and armed with lances like a band of soldiers,
3 and bands of horsemen in array attacking and charging against one another with shaking shields and multitudes of spears and drawing swords and shooting arrows and glittering golden ornaments with harnesses of all kinds.
4 Therefore every man prayed that the apparition might turn to good.
5 Now when a false rumour had gone out, as though Antioḵos had been dead, Yason took at the least one thousand men, and made a sudden assault on the city; and those that were on the walls retreated, and with the city being eventually taken, Menelaos fled into the fortress.
6 But Yason slew his own citizens without pity, not considering that to win the day from them over his own nation would be a very grievous day for him; but thinking they had been his enemies whom he conquered, and not his countrymen.
7 However for all this he did not obtain the principality, but in the end received shame for the recompense of his treason, and fled again into the land of the Ammonites.
8 In the end therefore, he had an unpleasant return, being accused before Aretas the sovereign of the Araḇians, fleeing from city to city, pursued by all men, hated as a forsaker of the Laws, and being held in abomination as an open enemy of his country and countrymen, he was thrown out into Mitsrayim.
9 So he that had driven many out of their land perished in a strange land, retiring to the Lakedemonians, and thinking to find support there by reason of his relatives.
10 And he that had thrown out many unburied had none to mourn for him, nor any solemn funerals at all, nor tomb with his fathers.
11 Now when this that was done came to the sovereign’s ear, he thought that Yahuḏah had revolted, so departing from Mitsrayim in a rage, he took the city by force of arms,
12 and commanded his men of battle not to spare any they met, but to slay any who went up on the houses.
13 Thus there was slaughter of young and old; doing away with men, women and children; slaying of maidens and infants.
14 And there were eighty thousand destroyed within the space of three whole days, of which forty thousand were slain in the battle, and no fewer sold than slain.
15 Yet was he not content with this, but presumed to go into the most qodesh Hĕyḵal of all the world – Menelaos being his guide – that traitor to the Laws and to his own country.
16 And taking the qodesh vessels with polluted hands, and with profane hands pulling down those that were dedicated by other sovereigns to the adornment and esteem and honour of the place, he gave away.
17 And Antioḵos was so proud of heart that he did not consider that 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 was wroth for a while for the sins of those that dwelt in the city, and therefore his eye was not on the place.
18 For had they not been previously entwined in many sins, this man as soon as he had come, had promptly been scourged and put back from his presumption, as Heliodorus was, whom Seleukus the sovereign sent to view the treasury.
19 Nevertheless Elohim did not choose the people for the sake of the place, but the place for the sake of the people.
20 And therefore the place itself, that shared with those in the distress that befell the nation, afterward shared in the benefits sent from 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, and as it was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty, so again, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 the Almighty having restored it to favour, was put up with all esteem.
21 So when Antioḵos had carried out of the Hĕyḵal one thousand eight hundred talanton, he departed in haste to Antioḵeia, thinking in his pride to sail on the land and pass over the sea on foot, such was the pride of his heart.
22 And he left governors to oppress the nation: at Yerushalayim, Philippos, a Phrugian of his land, and in many ways more barbarous than he that appointed him there.
23 And at Gerizim: Andronikos, and also Menelaos, who worse than all the rest bore a heavy hand over the citizens, having a malicious heart against his race the Yahuḏim.
24 He also sent that detestable ringleader Apollonios with an army of twenty-two thousand, commanding him to slay all those in their prime and to sell the women and the younger ones,
25 who coming to Yerushalayim and pretending peace, waited till the qodesh day of the Shabbath, when finding the Yahuḏim keeping a qodesh day, he commanded his men to arm themselves.
26 And so he slew all those that went to the celebration of the Shabbath, and running through the city with weapons slew great multitudes.
27 But Yahuḏah Maqqaḇah with about nine others, withdrew into the wilderness with his army, and lived in the mountains after the manner of beasts, eating plants continually, lest they should be partakers of the pollution.