Victories against the neighboring peoples
1 After these agreements had been concluded, Lysias returned to the king and the
Jews began to return to their fields.
2 But the commanders of the different regions, Timotheus and Apollonius, the son
of Genneus, as well as Hierony mus and Domophenes, and Ni canor, the leader of
the Cypriots, would not let them live in peace and quiet.
3 Moreover, the inhabitants of Joppa committed this grave crime. They invited
the Jews with their wives and children to a cruise on some boats they had
prepared, as if they did not have any hostility.
4 This was decided by the city authorities and the Jews accepted in order to
show their desire to live with them in peace and without any suspicion at all.
But once out in the open sea, the men of Joppa pushed them into the water and at
least two hundred died.
5 When Judas Maccabeus was in formed of this cruelty against his countrymen, he
informed his men.
6 After calling upon God, the just judge, he set out against the murderers of
his brothers and sisters. He set fire to the harbor by night, burned the ships
and put to the sword those who had taken refuge there.
7 But, as the gates were closed, he could not enter the city, so he withdrew,
intending to come back to wipe out all the inhabitants of Joppa.
8 Meanwhile, he learned that the inhab itants of Jamnia wanted to deal in the
same way with the Jews who lived there.
9 He also attacked the people of Jamnia by night, and set the harbor and ships
on fire. The blaze was so great that the glow could be seen even from Jerusalem,
some fifty kilometers away.
10 From there, they set out and marched against Timotheus, but when they had
marched for about two kilometers, five thousand Arabs supported by five hundred
horses, attacked them.
11 A bloody battle took place, and the men of Judas emerged victorious with the
help of God. The defeated Arabs sued for peace, and promised to give them
livestock, and to help them in the future.
12 Judas, convinced that they could indeed be useful to them, made peace with
them. Then the Arabs withdrew to their camps.
13 Judas attacked a city strongly fortified with ditches and walls. The city was
called Cas pin. People of every race lived there.
14 The be sieged, confident in the strength of their walls and because they had
their storehouses full of provisions, underestimated the men of Judas and
behaved most insolently toward them. They also shouted insults, blasphemies and
sacrilegious words at them.
15 The men of Judas called on the great Sove reign of the world who had
demolished the walls of Jericho without engines of war during the time of
Joshua, and then rushed furiously upon the walls.
16 God willed that they should take possession of the city, and they carried out
an incredible slaughter: the nearby lake, five hundred meters wide, seemed
filled with blood.
The battle of Carnaim
17 After marching for one hundred and fifty kilometers, they arrived in Charax,
where the Jews were known as Tubians.
18 They did not find Timotheus there, for he had gone without having achieved
anything; but he had left a strong garrison in one place.
19 Dositheus and Sosipater, leaders of the troops of Mac ca beus, marched
against them and destroyed the garrison of more than ten thousand men left
behind by Timotheus.
20 Maccabeus then organized his army, set these two as their commanders, and
rushed out against Timotheus who had twenty thousand infantrymen and two
thousand five hundred horsemen with him.
21 When Timotheus learned that Judas was approaching, he sent the women and
children away with a good deal of the baggage to a fortress called Carnaim which
was in an impregnable place and difficult to reach because of the narrow
approaches surrounding it.
22 At the sight of the first battalion of Judas, terror and panic seized their
enemies because of an apparition of Him who sees all things. They fled in all
directions, so that they were dragged on the ground by their own companions and
wounded by their own swords.
23 Judas pursued Timotheus in fury and ardor, putting to the sword those wicked
men and killing about thirty thousand of them.
24 Timotheus himself fell into the hands of DositheusĄ¯ and SosipaterĄ¯s troops.
He very cun ningly pleaded with them to let him go, for, as he said, he had the
parents and brothers of most of the Jews in his power and they would surely be
put to death if he were to be killed.
25 When he had convinced them by the strength of his words, they let him go in
order to save their kindred.
26 Then Judas left for Carnaim and Atargateion, and killed twenty-five thousand
men there.
27 After defeating and destroying these enemies, he led an expe dition against
the walled city of Ephron, where Lysias had taken refuge with people of every
race. Strong young men were stationed outside the walls and they fought bravely.
And there were stores of war engines and missiles in -side.
28 After calling on the Lord almighty to crush the forces of the enemy, the Jews
seized the city and killed more than twenty-five thousand of the people inside.
29 Moving off from there, they went to Scythopolis, a city one hundred and
twenty kilometers from Jerusalem.
30 But as the Jews who lived there assured Judas that the inhabitants of that
city had always treated them well and had received them favorably in times of
persecution,
31 Judas and his men thanked these people and asked them to extend the same
kindness to his race in the future. Then they returned to Jerusalem, since the
feast of Weeks of Pentecost was approaching.
32 After the feast and Pentecost, they marched against Gorgias who was the
governor of Idumea.
33 Gorgias came out with three thousand infantrymen and four thousand horsemen
to meet him.
34 The battle began and some fell in the ranks of the Jews.
35 Dositheus, a horseman from Bache norĄ¯s troops, a very valiant man, grasped
Gorgias by the cloak, and forcibly dragged him along, wanting to take that
criminal alive. But a Thracian horseman rushed upon Dositheus and slashed his
shoulder, so that Gorgias was able to flee to Marisa.
36 Judas saw that the men of Esdrias were exhausted because they had been
fighting for a long time. He, therefore, prayed to the Lord to show himself as
their ally and lead them in battle.
37 Then, he chanted a battle hymn in the language of their ancestors, charged
against the troops of Gorgias all of a sudden, and defeated them.
Sacrifice for the fallen
38 Judas reorganized his army, and then went to the city of Adullam. Since it
was the weekĄ¯s end, they purified themselves and celebrated the sabbath there.
39 The next day the companions of Judas went to take away the bodies of the dead
(it was urgent to do it) and buried them with their relatives in the tombs of
their fathers.
40 They found under the tunic of each of the dead men ob jects consecrated to
the idols of Jamnia, which the Law forbade the Jews to wear. So it became clear
to everyone why these men had died.
41 Everyone blessed the intervention of the Lord, the just Judge who brings to
light the most secret deeds;
42 and they prayed to the Lord to completely pardon the sin of their dead
companions. The valiant Ju das urged his men to shun such sin in the future, for
they had just seen with their own eyes what had happened to those who sinned.
43 He took up a collection among his soldiers which amounted to two thousand
pieces of silver and sent it to Jerusalem to be offered there as a sacrifice for
sin.
They did all this very well and rightly inspired by their belief in the
resurrection of the dead.
44 If they did not believe that their fallen companions would rise again, then
it would have been a useless and foolish thing to pray for them.
45 But they firmly believed in a splendid reward for those who died as
believers; therefore, their concern was holy and in keeping with faith.
46 This was the reason why Judas had this sacrifice offered for the dead ¨C so
that the dead might be pardoned for their sin.
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Comments 2 Maccabees, Chapter 12
• 12.38 JudasĄ¯ soldiers feel encouraged in their faith when they find that their
companions who died in the war deserved it because of some sin. Be fore, for
example in the days of Joshua, believers were resigned to accept GodĄ¯s justice
and were not concerned about their guilty brothers (see Jos 7).
Now, JudasĄ¯ companions are concerned: did those who sinned stop being our
brothers? They belonged to GodĄ¯s people as we do: being raised to life, will
they not share a happy future with us?
Hence, JudasĄ¯ initiative and the prayer for the dead. They have just discovered
the solidarity among the members of GodĄ¯s people, between the living and the
dead.