Chapter 145

¹ “And another mighty king shall arise, and shall enter into the strongholds of the king of Egypt.”

² For there arose a certain Antiochus, king of Syria.

³ He became king in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the reign of the Greeks.

⁴ And indeed, in those days he joined battle against Ptolemy, king of Egypt, and prevailing over him, he gained the mastery.

⁵ Returning from Egypt, he went up against Jerusalem in the hundred and forty-third year, and taking all the treasures that were in the house of the Lord, he made his way to Antioch.

⁶ When these things had so come to pass, after two years’ time the king sent his own tax-collector to the cities of Judaea, to compel the Jews to forsake their ancestral laws and to submit themselves to the king’s decrees and laws.

⁷ And when he had arrived at the city of Modein, he summoned a certain man by the name of Mattathias, a devout and righteous man, who was of the priestly line; and answering him he said: “Come now, O Mattathias, sacrifice and carry out the king’s command, as all the nations have done; for you are a great ruler and leader in the city, and well established with children, and you shall be a friend of the king.”

⁸ But he answered and said: “Even if all the nations and every man go after the king to act according to his command, yet I and my house and the house of my father will by no means act according to the king’s command. God forbid that we should depart from the law and covenant of our fathers; we will not listen to the words of the king, to turn aside from our way to the right hand or to the left.”

⁹ While he was still speaking these words, behold, a certain Jewish man came up before his face and approached to sacrifice upon the altar at Modein; and when Mattathias saw it, he was zealous according to the law, and his inward parts trembled, and he raised up his wrath according to judgment, and rushing upon them he slew the Jewish man and the king’s officer who was compelling them, and he tore down the altar, and cried out in the city, saying: “Whoever stands with the Lord in his holy covenant, let him come out after me.”

¹⁰ And they left behind all that was in the city and fled into the mountains, and there was joined to him a band of men mighty in strength, and they became a support to him.