3:25: Then Judas and his brothers began to be feared, and terror
fell upon the Gentiles round about them.
26: His fame reached the king, and the Gentiles talked of the battles
of Judas.
27: When king Antiochus heard these reports, he was greatly angered;
and he sent and gathered all the forces of his kingdom, a very strong army.
28: And he opened his coffers and gave a year's pay to his forces, and
ordered them to be ready for any need.
29: Then he saw that the money in the treasury was exhausted, and that
the revenues from the country were small because of the dissension and disaster
which he had caused in the land by abolishing the laws that had existed from
the earliest days.
30: He feared that he might not have such funds as he had before for
his expenses and for the gifts which he used to give more lavishly than preceding
kings.
31: He was greatly perplexed in mind, and determined to go to Persia
and collect the revenues from those regions and raise a large fund.
32: He left Lysias, a distinguished man of royal lineage, in charge of
the king's affairs from the river Euphrates to the borders of Egypt.
33: Lysias was also to take care of Antiochus his son until he returned.
34: And he turned over to Lysias half of his troops and the elephants,
and gave him orders about all that he wanted done. As for the residents of Judea
and Jerusalem,
35: Lysias was to send a force against them to wipe out and destroy the
strength of Israel and the remnant of Jerusalem; he was to banish the memory
of them from the place,
36: settle aliens in all their territory, and distribute their land.
37: Then the king took the remaining half of his troops and departed
from Antioch his capital in the one hundred and forty-seventh year. He crossed
the Euphrates river and went through the upper provinces.
38: Lysias chose Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, and Nicanor and Gorgias,
mighty men among the friends of the king,
39: and sent with them forty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry
to go into the land of Judah and destroy it, as the king had commanded.
40: so they departed with their entire force, and when they arrived they
encamped near Emmaus in the plain.
41: When the traders of the region heard what was said to them, they
took silver and gold in immense amounts, and fetters, and went to the camp to
get the sons of Israel for slaves. And forces from Syria and the land of the
Philistines joined with them.
Web Author: Charles Wohlers
The Lectionary Page