2 Maccabees 13

New Catholic Bible

Chapter 13

The End of Menelaus, the Renegade. ¹ In the year one hundred and forty-nine, Judas and his men were informed that Antiochus Eupator was advancing on Judea with a large army, and that accompanying him was Lysias, his guardian, who was in charge of the government. ² Additionally, they had a Greek force consisting of one hundred and ten thousand foot soldiers, five thousand three hundred horsemen, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with scythes.^[a]

³ Menelaus also joined them, and with considerable hypocrisy, he kept urging Antiochus on, not for the sake of his country’s welfare, but in the belief that he would thereby become established in office. ⁴ However, the King of kings^[b] stirred up the fury of Antiochus against this scoundrel, and when Lysias offered convincing evidence to the king that Menelaus was to blame for all the trouble, Antiochus ordered him to be taken to Beroea and executed there in the customary local manner. ⁵ In that place there is a tower seventy-five feet high, full of ashes, with a rim encircling it that slopes down precipitously on all sides into the ashes. ⁶ Anyone found guilty of sacrilege, or any other heinous crime, is taken to the top and then hurled down to destruction. ⁷ Such was the fate suffered by Menelaus,^[c] the transgressor of the law, as he died without even being given the privilege of burial in the ground. ⁸ His manner of death was eminently just, for he had committed innumerable sins against the altar whose fire and ashes were holy, and it was in ashes that he met his death.

Judas Triumphs against the Syrians at Modein. ⁹ The king then advanced with savage arrogance, aiming to inflict on the Jews far worse sufferings than they had experienced under his father. ¹⁰ When Judas learned of this, he urged the people to call upon the Lord night and day and to implore him to come to their aid now more than ever before, ¹¹ since they were in danger of being deprived of their law, their country, and the holy temple, and not to allow them, just when they had begun to revive, to once again fall into the hands of the blasphemous Gentiles. ¹² When they had all joined in this petition and had implored the merciful Lord unceasingly for three days with weeping and fasting as they prostrated themselves, Judas encouraged them and ordered them to stand ready.

¹³ After consulting privately with the elders, he decided not to wait for the king’s army to invade Judea and take possession of the city, but to march forth and resolve matters with the help of God. ¹⁴ Thus, committing the outcome to the Creator of the world and exhorting his soldiers to fight bravely to the death for the law, the temple, the city, the country, and their way of life, he pitched camp near Modein.^{[d] 15} After giving his troops the battle cry, “God’s victory,” he made a nighttime attack on the king’s pavilion with a picked force of his bravest young warriors and killed about two thousand of the enemy in the camp, also slaying the lead elephant and its driver. ¹⁶ Eventually, they filled the camp with terror and confusion and then withdrew in triumph,^{[e] 17} just as dawn was breaking. All this was achieved through the help and protection that Judas had received from the Lord.

¹⁸ Antiochus V Makes a Treaty with the Jews. The king, having had a taste of the daring of the Jews, resorted to strategy to capture their positions. ¹⁹ He advanced against Beth-zur, a strong fortress of the Jews, but he was checked, driven back, and defeated. ²⁰ Judas then sent whatever supplies were needed to the garrison, ²¹ but Rhodocus, a soldier in the Jewish army, passed on secret information^[f] to the enemy. He was found out, arrested, and imprisoned. ²² The king negotiated with the inhabitants of Beth-zur for a second time, offering and accepting pledges of friendship. After withdrawing, he then attacked Judas and his men but was defeated.

²³ Soon afterward, he received a report that Philip,^[g] who had been left in charge of the government in Antioch, had rebelled. Stunned by this news, he opened negotiations with the Jews, agreed to their terms, and swore to respect all their rights. Having reached this agreement, he offered a sacrifice, honored the sanctuary, and made a generous donation to the holy place. ²⁴ He received Maccabeus in a gracious manner and left Hegemonides to serve as governor of the region from Ptolemais to the territory of the Gerrhenes.

²⁵ When he thereupon went to Ptolemais, the people of that city expressed their disapproval of the treaty in no uncertain terms, and were so angered that they wanted to annul its provisions. ²⁶ However, Lysias mounted the rostrum and made a reasoned defense of the treaty that won them over, calmed them down, and obtained their goodwill. Then he departed for Antioch.

Such are the basic facts of the king’s attack and his subsequent retreat.