2 Maccabees 1:17-19
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
17 Forever blessed be our God, who has thus punished the impious!
18 [a]Since we shall be celebrating the purification of the temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month Kislev,(A) we thought it right to inform you, that you too may celebrate the feast of Booths and of the fire that appeared when Nehemiah, the rebuilder of the temple[b] and the altar, offered sacrifices. 19 For when our ancestors were being led into captivity in Persia,[c] devout priests at the time took some of the fire from the altar and hid it secretly in the hollow of a dry cistern, making sure that the place would be unknown to anyone.
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- 1:18–36 This legendary account of Nehemiah’s miraculous fire is incorporated in the letter because of its connection with the Temple and its rededication. Booths: see note on v. 9.
- 1:18 Nehemiah, the rebuilder of the temple: he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, but the Temple had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel almost a century before.
- 1:19 Persia: actually Babylonia, which later became part of the Persian empire.
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