3 Maccabees 6:34-36

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

³⁴ Those who had previously believed that the Jews would be destroyed and become food for birds and had joyfully registered them groaned as they themselves were overcome by disgrace and their fire-breathing boldness was ignominiously^[a] quenched.

³⁵ The Jews, as we have said before, arranged the aforementioned choral group^[b] and passed the time in feasting to the accompaniment of joyous thanksgiving and psalms.^{(A) 36} And when they had ordained a public rite for these things for their whole community for generations to come, they instituted the observance of the aforesaid days as a festival, not for drinking and gluttony but because of the deliverance that had come to them through God.^(B)