1. In the one hundred and forty-ninth year, Judas realized that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea.
2. And with him was Lysias, the procurator, who was in charge of the government, having with him one hundred and ten thousand foot solders, five thousand horsemen, and twenty-two elephants, and three hundred swift chariots with curved blades.
3. Menelaus also joined himself to them, and with many lies he pleaded with Antiochus, not for the welfare of his country, but hoping that he would be appointed as first ruler.
4. But the King of kings awakened the mind of Antiochus against the sinner. And when Lysias was suggesting this to be the cause of all the evils, he ordered (as is the custom with them) that he should be apprehended and killed in the same place.
5. Now there was, in the same place, a tower of fifty cubits, having a pile of ashes on every side. This had a lookout over a precipice.
6. From there, he ordered this sacrilegious one to be thrown down into the ashes, with all propelling him into the afterlife.
7. And by such a law, it turned out that the betrayer of the law, Menelaus, died, not having so much as a burial in the earth.
8. And indeed, this satisfied justice, for just as he had committed many offenses toward the altar of God, the fire and ashes of which are holy, so was he condemned to die in ashes.
9. But the king, with his mind being unbridled, came to reveal himself as more wicked to the Jews than his father was.
10. When Judas understood this, he instructed the people to call upon the Lord day and night, so that, just as always, now also he would help them.
11. Of course, they were afraid to be deprived of their law and their country, and of the holy temple, and also that he might allow the people, who had recently taken a breath for a little while, to be again subdued by blasphemous nations.