1. Judas, also named the Maccabee, and his companions went secretly into the villages and called together their relatives and those who continued to follow Judaism, enlisting a force of about six thousand soldiers.
2. They called on the Lord to look on the people who were oppressed by all, to take pity on the temple that was degraded by ungodly people,
3. and to have mercy on the city that was being destroyed and about to be leveled. They called on the Lord to listen to the shed blood of those who had appealed to God for help,
4. to remember the needless massacre of innocent infants, and to show his hatred of the evil things said against his name.
5. Once he organized his army, the Maccabee couldn’t be stopped by the Gentiles, because the Lord’s wrath had turned into mercy.
6. He would come suddenly into towns and villages, set them ablaze, capture a number of the strategically important places, and put many of the enemy to flight.
7. He especially found the night advantageous for such attacks. Talk of his good courage spread everywhere.
8. Philip saw how Judas was progressing little by little and gaining ground with each success, so he wrote to Ptolemy the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia to come to the aid of the royal government.
9. Nicanor, Patroclus’ son, one of the king’s most important political advisors, was immediately chosen and sent with a military unit of no fewer than twenty thousand men of various nationalities to eliminate Judea’s entire population. He also sent with him Gorgias, a general experienced in military affairs.
10. Nicanor agreed to raise the payment that the king owed the Romans—114,000 pounds of silver—by selling the Jewish prisoners of war.
11. Immediately, he sent a message into the coastal cities, summoning them to purchase Jews as slaves, setting the price at fifty-seven pounds of silver for every ninety persons. But he didn’t anticipate the judgment that was coming from the almighty.
12. When news of Nicanor’s plan reached Judas, he told those with him about the imminent appearance of the military force.
13. The cowardly and those who didn’t trust God’s judgment ran away and hid themselves.
14. Some were selling all they possessed while at the same time calling on the Lord to rescue those whom Nicanor had sold even before they met.