2 Maccabees 12:10-25

New Catholic Bible

¹⁰ Judas Intervenes in Galaad.^[a] When the Jews had proceeded more than a mile from there in their campaign against Timothy, they were attacked by at least five thousand Arab infantrymen supported by five hundred horsemen. ¹¹ After a fierce struggle, Judas and his companions were victorious with the help of God. The defeated nomads begged Judas to make a pact of friendship with them, and they promised to supply the Jews with cattle and to help them in every other way possible. ¹² Realizing that they might indeed be useful in many ways, Judas agreed to make peace with them, and after assurances of friendship had been exchanged, the Arabs withdrew to their tents.

¹³ Judas also attacked a town named Caspin, which was fortified by earthworks and ramparts and inhabited by a mixed population of Gentiles. ¹⁴ Confident in the strength of their walls and their stock of provisions, the besieged treated Judas and his men with contempt, insulting them and uttering blasphemies and profanity. ¹⁵ However, Judas and his men invoked the great Sovereign of the world who, without battering ram or engines of war, had overthrown Jericho in the days of Joshua. Then they stormed the wall with a savage assault. ¹⁶ They captured the town by the will of God, inflicting such an indescribable slaughter that the adjoining lake, a quarter of a mile in width, appeared to be overflowing with blood.

¹⁷ The Battle of Carnaim. When they had advanced from there about ninety-five miles, they came to Charax, which was inhabited by those Jews known as Toubiani.^{[b] 18} However, they did not find Timothy in that region, for by then he had departed from there without accomplishing anything, aside from leaving behind a very strong garrison in one place. ¹⁹ But Dositheus and Sosipater, two of the generals of Maccabeus, marched out and destroyed the force that Timothy had left behind in the stronghold, a force that numbered more than ten thousand men. ²⁰ Meanwhile, Maccabeus divided his army into cohorts, with a commander in charge of each cohort,^[c] and hurried in pursuit of Timothy, whose troops numbered one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and twenty-five hundred cavalry. ²¹ When Timothy learned of the approach of Judas, he sent off the women and the children and also the baggage to a place called Carnaim, which was hard to besiege and difficult to approach because of the narrowness of the passages of entry.

²² However, after the first cohort of Judas appeared, the enemy was stricken with terror and fear at the manifestation of the All-seeing One. In headlong flight, they scattered in every direction, so that frequently they were injured by their own comrades and run through by the points of their swords. ²³ Judas pressed the pursuit vigorously, putting the sinners to the sword and slaying as many as thirty thousand men.

²⁴ Timothy himself fell into the hands of Dositheus and Sosipater and their men, but with considerable cunning, he begged them to let him go unharmed, the reason being that he had the parents and relatives of many of them in his power and their fate was in his hands. ²⁵ When he made a solemn pledge to return those hostages unharmed, they set him free for the sake of saving their kindred.