1 Maccabees 6

1 King Antiochus, meanwhile, was making his way through the upper provinces, and he heard that Elymais, in Persia, was a city famous for its wealth, for silver and gold, [a] 2 and that its temple was very rich, holding coverings of gold, and breastplates, and weapons, left there by Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian king, the first to reign over the Greeks. 3 So he came and tried to take the city and plunder it. But he could not, because word of the plan had reached the people of the city; 4 they rose against him in battle, and he fled, and left there in great sorrow to return to Babylon.

5 Then a messenger reached him in Persia with the news that the armies that had marched into the land of Judah had been routed; 6 that Lysias had gone in first with a strong force and had been driven back before them; that the Jews had grown strong with the weapons, the forces, and the abundant spoils they had taken from the armies they had cut down; 7 and that they had torn down the detestable thing he had built on the altar in Jerusalem, and had ringed the sanctuary with high walls as before — and Beth-zur too, his own city.

8 When the king heard this news, he was stunned and deeply shaken. He took to his bed and fell sick from grief, because things had not gone as he had planned. 9 He lay there many days, his great grief renewed again and again, and he concluded that he was dying.

10 So he called all his friends and said to them, “Sleep has fled from my eyes, and my heart has given way under care. 11 I said in my heart: to what distress I have come — how great a flood I am in now! For I was kind, and loved, in the days of my power. 12 But now I remember the evils I did in Jerusalem — how I took all the vessels of silver and gold that were in her, and sent to wipe out those who lived in Judah for no reason at all. 13 I know that this is why these evils have found me — and look, I am perishing of great grief in a foreign land.”

14 Then he called Philip, one of his friends, and set him over his whole kingdom. 15 He gave him the crown, his robe, and his signet ring, so that he might bring up his son Antiochus and raise him to be king. 16 And King Antiochus died there, in the 149th year. [b] 17 When Lysias learned that the king was dead, he set up the king’s son Antiochus, whom he had brought up from boyhood, to reign in his place; and he named him Eupator. [c]

18 Now the men of the citadel were hemming Israel in all around the holy place, forever seeking their harm and lending strength to the nations. 19 So Judas resolved to wipe them out, and he called all the people together to besiege them. 20 They assembled and laid siege to the citadel in the 150th year, and Judas built firing platforms and siege engines against it. [d]

21 But some of the besieged slipped out through the blockade, and some of the ungodly of Israel joined them, 22 and they went to the king and said, “How long before you do justice, and avenge our brothers? 23 We were glad to serve your father, to live by what he told us, and to follow his decrees. 24 And for this the sons of our own people have laid siege to the citadel and become strangers to us. More than that — they have put to death as many of us as they could find, and plundered our inheritances. 25 And it is not against us alone that they have stretched out their hand, but against all their borders. 26 Look — today they are encamped against the citadel in Jerusalem, to take it, and they have fortified the sanctuary and Beth-zur. 27 Unless you move quickly to head them off, they will do worse than this, and you will not be able to hold them.”

28 The king was furious when he heard it. He gathered all his friends, the commanders of his army, and the masters of horse. 29 Bands of hired soldiers came to him from other kingdoms and from the islands of the seas, 30 until his forces numbered a hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand cavalry, and thirty-two elephants trained for war. 31 They came through Idumea and camped against Beth-zur, and fought there many days, building siege engines; but the defenders came out and burned the engines with fire, and fought like men.

32 Then Judas moved off from the citadel and camped at Beth-zechariah, opposite the king’s camp. 33 The king rose early in the morning and marched his army at full speed along the road to Beth-zechariah; his forces formed up for battle and sounded the trumpets. 34 They showed the elephants the blood of grapes and mulberries, to rouse them for the fight.

35 They divided the beasts among the phalanxes. With each elephant they stationed a thousand men in coats of chain mail, with bronze helmets on their heads; and five hundred picked horsemen were assigned to each beast. 36 These took position ahead of time wherever the beast was, and wherever it went, they went with it; they never left it. 37 On each elephant was a strong wooden tower, shielded, strapped fast to the animal by its harness; and on each were four fighting men who fought from it — and its Indian driver. [e] 38 The rest of the cavalry he stationed on the army’s two flanks, to harry the enemy while keeping cover in the phalanxes.

39 When the sun flashed on the shields of gold and bronze, the mountains flashed back with them and blazed like torches of fire. 40 Part of the king’s army was spread along the high mountains and part across the low ground, and they came on, sure of themselves and in good order. 41 All who heard the roar of that multitude, the tramp of its marching and the clash of its arms, trembled — for the army was very great and very strong.

42 Judas and his army closed for battle, and six hundred men of the king’s army fell. 43 Then Eleazar, called Avaran, saw that one of the beasts was fitted with royal armor and stood taller than all the others, and he thought the king must be riding it. [f] 44 So he gave himself, to save his people and to win himself an everlasting name. 45 He ran at it boldly, into the middle of the phalanx, dealing death to the right and to the left, and they fell back from him on both sides. 46 He got in under the elephant and thrust up from beneath, and killed it — and it came down on top of him, onto the ground, and there he died. 47 But when the Jews saw the strength of the royal army and the fury of its advance, they turned and withdrew.

48 The men of the king’s army marched up toward Jerusalem to meet them, and the king pitched camp against Judea and against Mount Zion. 49 With the men of Beth-zur he made peace, and they came out of the city — for there was no food there for standing a siege, because it was a Sabbath for the land. 50 So the king took Beth-zur and stationed a garrison there to hold it.

51 Then he laid siege to the sanctuary for many days, setting up firing platforms and engines — machines to hurl fire and machines to hurl stones, “scorpions” to shoot arrows, and slings. 52 The defenders built engines to answer their engines, and fought on for many days. 53 But there was no food left in the storerooms, because it was the seventh year, and those who had escaped from the nations into Judea had eaten up the last of the stores. 54 Only a few men were left in the holy place, for the famine had been too strong for them; the rest had scattered, every man to his own home.

55 Then Lysias heard that Philip — the man King Antiochus, while he still lived, had appointed to bring up his son Antiochus to be king — 56 had returned from Persia and Media with the forces that had marched with the king, and was seeking to take over the government. 57 So Lysias moved fast. He gave the word to withdraw, and said to the king, to the commanders of the army, and to the men, “We grow weaker by the day, our food is running short, the place we are besieging is strong — and the affairs of the kingdom are pressing on us. 58 So now let us offer these men the right hand: let us make peace with them and with their whole nation. 59 Let us settle with them that they may live by their own practices as they did before; for it was over those practices of theirs — the ones we abolished — that they grew angry and did all these things.”

60 The proposal pleased the king and the commanders, and he sent word to the Jews to make peace; and they accepted it. 61 The king and the commanders swore an oath to them, and on those terms they came out of the stronghold. 62 But when the king entered Mount Zion and saw how strong the place was, he broke the oath he had sworn, and gave orders to tear down the wall all around it. 63 Then he left in haste and returned to Antioch — where he found Philip master of the city. He fought him, and took the city by force.