1 When these agreements had been made, Lysias returned to the king, and the Jews went back to their farming.
2 But some of the governors of various locales—Timothy and Apollonius son of Gennaeus, as well as Hieronymus and Demophon, and in addition Nicanor the commander of the Cyprians—would not allow the Jews to enjoy tranquility and live in peace.
3 Then the people of Joppa did so great an ungodly deed as this: they invited the Jews who lived among them, together with their wives and children, to embark on ships equipped for sea, as though they harbored no ill will toward them.
4 Now this was done by the common vote of the city. But when the Jews welcomed this, wishing to live in peace and suspecting nothing, the men of Joppa took them out to sea and drowned at least two hundred of them.
5 When Judas learned of the cruelty visited on his countrymen, he summoned his men.
6 So when he had called upon God, the righteous judge, he attacked the murderers of his brothers. He set the harbor on fire by night, burned the ships, and put to the sword those who fled there.
7 But since the gates of the city were closed, he departed, intending to come again and root out the whole community of Joppa.
8 However, when he learned that the people in Jamnia intended to wipe out the Jews who were living among them in the same way,
9 he attacked the Jamnian people by night and set the harbor and the fleet on fire; therefore, the glow of the light was visible as far as Jerusalem, thirty miles away.
10 When they had gone about a mile from there on their march against Timothy, Arabs attacked him with no less than five thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry.
11 After a strongly contested battle, Judas and his men, with God's help, were successful. The defeated nomads pleaded with Judas to grant them pledges of friendship. They promised to give him livestock and to benefit them in other ways.
12 So Judas, supposing they could indeed be useful in varied ways, agreed to make peace with them. Then after he accepted their pledges, they returned to their tents.
13 He also attacked a certain town named Caspin, strongly fortified with earthworks and walls, and inhabited by a mixed population of Gentiles.
14 Those within it trusted in the security of the walls and their supply of provisions. They behaved very contemptuously toward Judas and his men, insulting them and even blaspheming and saying unlawful things.
15 But Judas and his men called upon the great Lord of the world, who overthrew Jericho without battering rams or engines of war in the times of Joshua. Then Judas and his men assaulted the walls.
16 They overpowered the city by the will of God and inflicted such indescribable slaughter that the adjoining lake, a quarter of a mile wide, seemed to be filled with blood.
17 From there, they went ninety-five miles and continued on to Charax, to the Jews who were called Toubiani.
18 They did not overtake Timothy in that region, for by then he had departed from there without accomplishing anything; but in one place Timothy left a very strong garrison.
19 Dositheus and Sosipater, who were commanders under Maccabeus, marched out and crushed those men Timothy left in the stronghold, over ten thousand soldiers.
20 But Maccabeus organized his army in divisions—setting men in command of the divisions—and hastened after Timothy, who had with him one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry.
21 When Timothy learned of the approach of Judas, he sent the women and the children ahead with the baggage to a place called Carnaim; for that place was hard to attack and difficult to access because of the narrowness of all its places.
22 But when Judas’ first division appeared, alarm and fear came over the enemy at the manifestation to them of Him who sees all things. They ran off in flight, rushing headlong in every direction, so as to be often hurt by their own men and stabbed by the points of their own swords.
23 Judas pursued them with great vigor, piercing the sinful men with the sword and killing as many as thirty thousand of them.
24 Timothy himself fell into the hands of Dositheus and Sosipater and their soldiers. With great trickery he pleaded with them to let him go safely, because he held the parents of most of them and some of their brothers, to whom no regard would be shown.
25 So when with many words he had confirmed his solemn promise to restore them unharmed, they released him for the sake of rescuing their brothers.
26 Then Judas marched against Carnaim and the temple of Atargatis, and destroyed twenty five thousand people.
27 After the rout and slaughter of these, he also marched on Ephron, a fortified town where Lysias lived with countless people of all nations. Strong young men were set as guards before the walls and fought mightily. Many provisions of war engines and missiles were stored there.
28 But the Jews called upon the Lord, who with power crushes the strength of His enemies. Thus they took possession of the city and killed as many as twenty five thousand of those within it.
29 Moving away from Ephron, they hurried on to Scythopolis, seventy-five miles from Jerusalem.
30 But when the Jews who lived there testified to the goodwill the people of Scythopolis had shown them and their civilized treatment of them in times of trouble,
31 they thanked them and encouraged them also to be favorable to the Jewish race in the future. Then Judas and his men arrived at Jerusalem, the Feast of Weeks being close at hand.
32 After this feast, also called Pentecost, they marched against Gorgias, the governor of Idumea.
33 He came out against them with three thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry.
34 After they engaged in battle, it happened that a few of the Jews were killed.
35 But a certain Dositheus, one of Bacenor's men, a man on horseback and a strong man, grabbed hold of Gorgias. He took hold of his cloak and was dragging him off by sheer strength. He intended to take the accursed man alive, but one of the Thracian cavalry chased him down and severed his arm. So Gorgias fled to Marisa.
36 Now Esdris and his men had been fighting for a long while and were tired. So Judas called on the Lord to show Himself as their ally and leader in battle.
37 They began to sound the battle cry in the language of their forefathers and sang hymns. Then he charged against the troops of Gorgias when they least expected it, and set them to flight.
38 Then Judas retrieved his army and entered the city of Adullam. As the seventh day was dawning, they purified themselves according to custom and spent the Sabbath there.
39 The following day, as was now necessary, Judas and his men left to gather up the bodies of those killed in battle, to bring them back to rest with their kindred in the tombs of their forefathers.
40 But under the tunics of each of the dead, they uncovered sacred tokens of the Jamnian idols, which the Jews are forbidden by law to wear. So the reason these men died in battle became clear to everyone.
41 Thus they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge, who reveals the hidden things.
42 They turned to supplication and prayed that the sin they had committed might be completely blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted his people to guard themselves from sin, for with their own eyes they had seen what happened to those who died in battle because of their sin.
43 He then took up an offering from his soldiers amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, and sent it to Jerusalem to present as a sin offering. In doing so he acted properly and with honor, taking note of the resurrection.
44 For if he were not looking for the resurrection of those fallen, it would have been utterly foolish to pray for the departed.
45 But since he was looking to the reward of splendor laid up for those who repose in godliness, it was a holy and godly purpose. Thus he made atonement for the fallen, so as to set them free from their transgression.