2. May God be gracious to you, and may he remember his covenant, which was spoken to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, his faithful servants.
3. And may he give all of you the heart to worship him, and to do his will, with a great heart and a willing soul.
4. May he throw open your heart with his law and with his precepts, and may he create peace.
5. May he heed your prayers and be reconciled to you, and may he not forsake you in the evil time.
6. And now, in this place, we are praying for you.
7. When Demetrius reigned, in the one hundred and sixty-ninth year, we Jews wrote to you during the tribulation and assaults which overcame us in those years, from the time that Jason withdrew from the holy land and from the kingdom.
8. They burnt the gate, and they shed innocent blood. And we prayed to the Lord and were heard, and we brought forth sacrifices and fine wheat flour, and we kindled the lamps and set forth the loaves.
9. And now, celebrate the days of shelters in the month of Kislev.
10. In the one hundred and eighty-eighth year, from the people who are at Jerusalem and in Judea, and from the Senate and Judas: to Aristobulus, the magistrate of king Ptolemy, who is of the ancestry of anointed priests, and to those Jews who are in Egypt: greetings and good health.
11. Having been freed by God from great peril, we give thanks to him greatly, in as much as we have been struggling against so great a king.
12. For he caused those who fought against us and against the holy city to burst forth from Persia.
13. For when the commander himself was in Persia, and with him an immense army, he fell in the temple of Nanea, having been deceived by the counsel of the priests of Nanea.
14. For Antiochus also came to the place with his friends, as if to live with her, and so that he would receive much money in the name of a dowry.
15. And when the priests of Nanea had made the proposal, and he had entered with a few men into the vestibule of the shrine, they closed the temple,
16. after Antiochus had entered. And throwing open a hidden entrance to the temple, they cast stones, and they struck the leader and those who were with him. And, having severed their limbs and cut off their heads, they threw them outside.