1. At the same time, Antiochus returned in dishonor from Persia.
2. For he had entered into the city called Persepolis, and attempted to rob the temple, and to oppress the city, but the multitude, rushing to arms, turned them to flight, and so it happened that Antiochus, after fleeing, returned in disgrace.
3. And when he had arrived near Ecbatana, he realized what had happened to Nicanor and Timothy.
4. And so, rising up in anger, he thought to turn back upon the Jews the injury done by those who had put him to flight. And, therefore, he ordered his chariot to be driven without stopping along the way, for the judgment of heaven was urging him on, because he had spoken so arrogantly about how he would come to Jerusalem and make it into a mass grave for the Jews.
5. But the Lord God of Israel, who oversees all things, struck him with an incurable and invisible plague. For, as soon as he had finished these words, a dire pain in his abdomen seized him, with bitter internal torments.
6. And, indeed, it sprung forth justly, since he had tormented the internal organs of others with many strange and new tortures, yet he in no way ceased from his malice.
7. But, beyond this, being filled with arrogance, breathing fire with his soul against the Jews, and instructing the task to be accelerated, it happened that, as he was rushing on forcefully, he fell from the chariot, and his limbs were afflicted with a serious bruising of the body.
8. And he, being filled with arrogance beyond human means, seemed to himself to command even the waves of the sea and to weigh even the heights of the mountains in a balance. But now, humbled to the ground, he was carried on a stretcher, calling himself as a witness to the manifest virtue of God.
9. So then, worms swarmed from his impious body, and, as he lived on in pain, his flesh fell away, and then his odorous stench oppressed the army.