1 Maccabees 4:26-35

New Catholic Bible

²⁶ Victory over Lysias. Those foreigners who had managed to escape went to Lysias and reported to him everything that had occurred. ²⁷ When he heard the news, he was greatly disturbed and disappointed, because his plots against Israel had not turned out as he had intended and in accordance with the command of the king.

²⁸ So the following year he mobilized sixty thousand picked infantry and five thousand cavalry to defeat them. ²⁹ They marched into Idumea and encamped at Beth-zur.^[a] Judas confronted them with ten thousand men, ³⁰ and when he realized how strong their army was, he offered this prayer:

“Blessed are you, O Savior of Israel, who crushed the attack of the mighty warrior by the hand of your servant David and delivered the camp of the Philistines into the hands of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and of his armor-bearer. ³¹ Deliver this army into the hands of your people Israel, and destroy the pride of the enemy in their troops and cavalry. ³² Fill them with fear, weaken the boldness of their strength, and let them quake at their own destruction. ³³ Strike them down with the sword of those who love you, so that all who acknowledge your name will praise you with hymns.”

³⁴ Then both sides entered into battle, and in the hand-to-hand combat five thousand of the army of Lysias were slain. ³⁵ When Lysias saw his army being routed and the boldness of the soldiers of Judas who were prepared either to live or to die nobly, he withdrew to Antioch and began to recruit a force of mercenaries for a further invasion of Judea with an even larger army.