2 Maccabees 9

1 About that time it happened that Antiochus had pulled back in disorder from the region of Persia. 2 He had entered the city called Persepolis and set about robbing its temple and holding the city. But the crowds rushed to their weapons for help and turned his men back, and so it happened that Antiochus was routed by the people of the place and made a shameful retreat. [a] 3 While he was at Ecbatana, the news reached him of what had happened to Nicanor and to Timothy’s forces. 4 Lifted up with rage, he thought to take out on the Jews the harm done him by the men who had put him to flight. So he ordered his charioteer to drive without stopping and finish the journey — with the judgment of heaven already riding with him. For this is what he had said in his arrogance: “When I get there I will make Jerusalem a mass grave of Jews.”

5 But the Lord who watches everything, the God of Israel, struck him with an incurable and unseen blow. The moment he had finished the sentence, a pain of the bowels past all remedy took hold of him, and bitter torments of the inner parts — [b] 6 and that most justly, since he had tortured the bowels of others with many strange calamities. 7 But he did not give up his insolence at all. He was still full of arrogance, breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, and ordering the journey hurried. And it happened that he fell from the chariot as it rushed along, and in the hard fall every limb of his body was wrenched out of joint. 8 So the man who a moment before had thought he could give orders to the waves of the sea, in his more-than-human boasting, and had imagined he could weigh the heights of the mountains on a scale, was brought down to the ground and carried in a litter, showing everyone the plain power of God.

9 Worms swarmed up out of the godless man’s body; while he was still living, in agony and pain, his flesh fell away; and the whole army was weighed down by the stench of his rotting. 10 The man who a little before had thought he could touch the stars of heaven — now no one could carry him, because the weight of the smell was past bearing. 11 So it was there, broken, that he began to give up most of his arrogance and to come to knowledge, under the whip of God, with the pains sharpening moment by moment. 12 And when he could not stand even his own smell, he said this: “It is right to be subject to God, and for a mortal not to think himself God’s equal.”

13 And the vile man prayed to the Master who would no longer have mercy on him, promising this: 14 that the holy city, which he had been hurrying to level with the ground and turn into a mass grave, he would declare free; 15 that the Jews, whom he had judged not worth even a burial, but fit to be thrown out with their infants for the birds and the wild animals, he would make all of them equal to Athenians; 16 that the holy sanctuary, which he had plundered before, he would furnish with the finest offerings, and give back all the holy vessels many times over, and pay the costs that fell to the sacrifices out of his own revenues; 17 and on top of all this, that he would become a Jew himself and travel to every inhabited place proclaiming the strength of God.

18 But the pains did not let up at all, for God’s righteous judgment had come upon him. Giving up hope for himself, he wrote to the Jews the letter set out below, in the form of a plea. It ran like this: 19 “To the worthy Jews, his fellow citizens — many greetings, and health, and prosperity: from Antiochus, king and commander. 20 If you and your children are well, and your own affairs are as you would wish — I have my hope in heaven — [c] 21 I remembered your respect and your goodwill with warm affection. On my way back from the region of Persia I fell into a troublesome illness, and I judged it necessary to take thought for the common safety of all. 22 It is not that I despair of my own case; I have great hope of escaping this illness. 23 But I note that my father too, at the times when he took the army into the upper country, named the man who was to succeed him, 24 so that if anything unexpected happened, or hard news was brought, the people of the land would know to whom affairs had been left and would not be thrown into confusion. 25 Besides this, I have been watching the sovereigns on my borders, neighbors of the kingdom, waiting for their moment and watching for the outcome. So I have named my son Antiochus king — the one I have often entrusted and commended to most of you when I went up to the upper provinces. I have written to him what is set out below. [d] 26 So I urge you and ask you to remember the good I have done you, in public and each of you privately, and to keep the goodwill you have toward me and toward my son. 27 For I am persuaded that he will follow my own policy and will deal with you with fairness and kindness.”

28 So the murderer and reviler, having suffered the worst — just as he had dealt with others — ended his life in a most pitiable death, in the mountains of a foreign land. [e] 29 Philip, who had been brought up with him, carried the body away; and being afraid of the son of Antiochus, he took himself off to Ptolemy Philometor in Egypt. [f]