1367 verses about Persecution

and they accused the people to the king, saying, Judas and his kindred have destroyed all your friends, and have scattered us from our own land.

And they gave him credence: and he laid hands on threescore men of them, and killed them in one day, according to the word which the psalmist wrote,

The flesh of your saints did they cast out, And their blood did they shed round about Jerusalem; And there was no man to bury them.

And there were gathered to him all those who troubled their people, and they got the mastery of the land of Judah, and did great hurt in Israel.

And Judas saw all the mischief that Alcimus and his company had done among the children of Israel, even above the Gentiles,

and he went out into all the coasts of Judea round about, and took vengeance on the men that had deserted from him, and they were restrained from going forth into the country.

But when Alcimus saw that Judas and his company waxed strong, and knew that he was not able to withstand them, he returned to the king, and brought evil accusations against them.

And the king sent Nicanor, one of his honorable princes, a man that hated Israel and was their enemy, and commanded him to destroy the people.

And he came to Judas, and they saluted one another peaceably. And the enemies were ready to take away Judas by violence.

and there fell of Nicanor’s side about five hundred men, and they fled into the city of David.

And he mocked them, and laughed at them, and entreated them shamefully, and spoke haughtily,

And Nicanor went forth from Jerusalem, and encamped in Bethhoron, and there met him the army of Syria.

And they pursued after them a day’s journey from Adasa until you come to Gazara, and they sounded an alarm after them with the solemn trumpets.

and how they of Greece took counsel to come and destroy them;

and the thing was known to them, and they sent against them a captain, and fought against them, and many of them fell down wounded to death, and they made captive their wives and their children, and plundered them, and conquered their land, and pulled down their strongholds, and plundered them, and brought them into bondage to this day:

and that they should take the yoke from them; for they saw that the kingdom of the Greeks did keep Israel in bondage.

And as touching the evils which king Demetrius does to them, we have written to him, saying, Wherefore have you made your yoke heavy upon our friends and confederates the Jews?

And Demetrius heard that Nicanor was fallen with his forces in battle, and he sent Bacchides and Alcimus again into the land of Judah a second time, and the right wing of his army with them:

And the first month of the hundred and fifty and second year they encamped against Jerusalem:

and they removed, and went to Berea, with twenty thousand footmen and two thousand horse.

And Judas fell, and the rest fled.

And they sought out and searched for the friends of Judas, and brought them to Bacchides, and he took vengeance on them, and used them despitefully.

And there was great tribulation in Israel, such as was not since the time that no prophet appeared to them.

And all the friends of Judas were gathered together, and they said to Jonathan,

Since your brother Judas has died, we have no man like him to go forth against our enemies and Bacchides, and among them of our nation that hate us.

And Bacchides knew it, and he sought to kill him.

And in them he set a garrison, to vex Israel.

And Bacchides knew it, and he gathered together all his multitude, and sent word to those who were of Judea.

And Demetrius appointed Apollonius, who was over Coelesyria, and he gathered together a great army, and encamped in Jamnia, and sent to Jonathan the high priest, saying,

And he encamped against Joppa: and they of the city shut him out, because Apollonius had a garrison in Joppa:

But when Jonathan heard this, he commanded to besiege it still: and he chose certain of the elders of Israel and of the priests, and put himself in peril,

And certain lawless men of those who were of the nation made complaints against him,

And Jonathan sent to king Demetrius, that he should cast out of Jerusalem them of the citadel, and those who were in the strongholds; for they fought against Israel continually.

But as for ourselves, many afflictions and many wars have encompassed us, and the kings that are round about us have fought against us.

Now as soon as Jonathan entered into Ptolemais, they of Ptolemais shut the gates, and laid hands on him; and all those who came in with him they killed with the sword.

And all the Gentiles that were round about them sought to destroy them utterly: for they said, They have no ruler, nor any to help them: now therefore let us fight against them, and take away their memorial from among men.

by reason hereof all my kindred have perished for Israel’s sake, and I am left alone.

Howbeit I will take vengeance for my nation, and for the sanctuary, and for our wives and children; because all the Gentiles are gathered to destroy us of very hatred.

But they of the citadel in Jerusalem were hindered from going forth, and from going into the country, and from buying and selling; and they hungered exceedingly, and a great number of them perished through famine.

And Cendebaeus came to Jamnia, and began to provoke the people, and to invade Judea, and to take the people captive, and to kill them.

And he built Kidron, and set horsemen there, and forces of foot, to the end that issuing out they might make outroads upon the ways of Judea, according as the king commanded him.

In the reign of Demetrius, in the hundred threescore and ninth year, we the Jews have already written to you in the tribulation and in the extremity that has come upon us in these years, from the time that Jason and his company revolted from the holy land and the kingdom,

Having been saved by God out of great perils, as men arrayed against a king, we thank him greatly.

Torment those who oppress us and in arrogancy shamefully entreat us.

and further the wars against Antiochus Epiphanes, and Eupator his son,

and the manifestations that came from heaven to those that vied with one another in manful deeds for the religion of the Jews; so that, being but a few, they rescued the whole country, and chased the barbarous multitudes,

And him that was the benefactor of the city, and the guardian of his fellow countrymen, and a zealot for the laws, he dared to call a conspirator against the state.

for he eagerly established a Greek place of exercise under the citadel itself; and caused the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek cap.

By reason whereof sore calamity beset them; and the men whose ways of living they earnestly followed, and to whom they desired to be made like in all things, these they had to be their enemies and to punish them.

by reason of which they wounded many of them, and some they struck to the ground, and all of them they forced to flee, but the author of the sacrilege himself they killed beside the treasury.

But when a false rumour had arisen that Antiochus was deceased, Jason took not less than a thousand men, and suddenly made an assault upon the city; and those who were upon the wall being routed, and the city being now at length well near taken, Menelaus took refuge in the citadel.

And moreover he left governors to afflict the race: at Jerusalem, Philip, by race a Phrygian, and in character more barbarous than him that set him there;

and at Gerizim, Andronicus; and besides these, Menelaus, who worse than all the rest exalted himself against his fellow-citizens. And having a malicious mind toward the Jews whom he had made his citizens,

And he coming to Jerusalem, and playing the man of peace, waited till the holy day of the Sabbath, and finding the Jews at rest from work, he commanded his men to parade in arms.

But Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, with nine others or thereabout, withdrew himself, and with his company kept himself alive in the mountains after the manner of wild beasts; and they continued feeding on such poor herbs as grew there, that they might not be partakers of the threatened pollution.

And not long after this the king sent forth an old man of Athens to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers, and not to live after the laws of God;

and also to pollute the sanctuary in Jerusalem, and to call it by the name of Jupiter Olympius, and to call the sanctuary in Gerizim by the name of Jupiter the Protector of strangers, even as they were that lived in the place.

And a man could neither keep the Sabbath, nor observe the feasts of the fathers, nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew.

And on the day of the king’s birth every month they were led along with bitter constraint to eat of the sacrifices; and when the feast of Bacchus came, they were compelled to go in procession in honor of Bacchus, wearing wreaths of ivy.

And there wemt out a decree to the neighbouring Greek cities, by the suggestion of Ptolemy, that they should observe the same conduct against the Jews, and should make them eat of the sacrifices;

and that they should kill such as did not choose to go over to the Greek rites. So the present misery was for all to see:

for two women were brought up for having circumcised their children; and these, when they had led them publicly round about the city, with the babes hung from their breasts, they cast down headlong from the wall.

And others, that had run together into the caves near by to keep the seventh day secretly, being betrayed to Philip were all burned together, because they scrupled to defend themselves, from regard to the honor of that most solemn day.

Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, a man already well stricken in years, and of a noble countenance, was compelled to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh.

But he, welcoming death with renown rather than life with pollution, advanced of his own accord to the instrument of torture, but first spat forth the flesh,

coming forward as men ought to come that are resolute to repel such things as not even for the natural love of life is it lawful to taste.

But those who had the charge of that forbidden sacrificial feast took the man aside, for the acquaintance which of old times they had with him, and privately implored him to bring flesh of his own providing, such as was befitting for him to use, and to make as if he did eat of the flesh from the sacrifice, as had been commanded by the king;

that by so doing he might be delivered from death, and for his ancient friendship with them might be treated kindly.

But he, having formed a high resolve, and one that became his years, and the dignity of old age, and the gray hairs which he had reached with honor, and his excellent education from a child, or rather that became the holy laws of God’s ordaining, declared his mind accordingly, bidding them quickly send him to Hades.

For it becomes not our years to dissemble, said he, that through this many of the young should suppose that Eleazar, the man of fourscore years and ten, had gone over to an alien religion;

Wherefore, by manfully parting with my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age,

and leave behind a noble ensample to the young to die willingly and nobly a glorious death for the reverend and holy laws. And when he had said these words, he went straightway to the instrument of torture.

And when they changed the good will they bare him a little before into ill will, because these words of his were, as they thought, sheer madness,

and when he was at the point to die with the stripes, he groaned aloud and said, To the Lord, that has the holy knowledge, it is manifest that, whereas I might have been delivered from death, I endure sore pains in my body by being scourged; but in soul I gladly suffer these things for my fear of him.

So this man also died after this manner, leaving his death for an ensample of nobleness and a memorial of virtue, not only to the young but also to the great body of his nation.

And it came to pass that seven kindred also with their mother were at the king’s command taken and shamefully handled with scourges and cords, to compel them to taste of the abominable swine’s flesh.

But one of them made himself the spokesman and said, What would you ask and learn of us? for we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.

And the king fell into a rage, and commanded to heat pans and caldrons:

and when these forthwith were heated, he commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had been their spokesman, and to scalp him, and to cut off his extremities, the rest of his kindred and his mother looking on.

And when he was utterly maimed, the king commanded to bring him to the fire, being yet alive, and to fry him in the pan. And as the vapor of the pan spread far, they and their mother also exhorted one another to die nobly, saying thus:

And when the first had died after this manner, they brought the second to the mocking; and they pulled off the skin of his head with the hair and asked him, Wilt you eat, before your body be punished in every limb?

But he answered in the language of his fathers and said to them, No. Wherefore he also underwent the next torture in succession, as the first had done.

And when he was at the last gasp, he said, You, miscreant, do release us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise up us, who have died for his laws, to an eternal renewal of life.

And after him was the third made a mocking-stock. And when he was required, he quickly put out his tongue, and stretched forth his hands courageously,

and nobly said, From heaven I possess these; and for his laws’ sake I contemn these; and from him I hope to receive these back again:

insomuch that the king himself and those who were with him were astonished at the young man’s soul, for that he nothing regarded the pains.

And when he too was dead, they shamefully handled and tortured the fourth in like manner.

And next after him they brought the fifth, and shamefully handled him.

But he looked toward the king and said, Because you have authority among men, though you are yourself corruptible, you do what you will; yet think not that our race has been forsaken of God;

but hold you on your way, and behold his sovereign majesty, how it will torture you and your seed.

But above all was the mother marvelous and worthy of honorable memory; for when she looked on seven sons perishing within the space of one day, she bare the sight with a good courage for the hopes that she had set on the Lord.

But Antiochus, thinking himself to be despised, and suspecting the reproachful voice, while the youngest was yet alive did not only make his appeal to him by words, but also at the same time promised with oaths that he would enrich him and raise him to high estate, if he would turn from the customs of his fathers, and that he would take him for his Friend and intrust him with affairs.

But when the young man would in no wise give heed, the king called to him his mother, and exhorted her that she would counsel the lad to save himself.

But bending toward him, laughing the cruel tyrant to scorn, she spoke thus in the language of her fathers: My son, have pity upon me that carried you nine months in my womb, and gave you suck three years, and nourished and brought you up to this age, and sustained you.

Don’t be afraid of this butcher, but, proving yourself worthy of your kindred, accept your death, that in the mercy of God I may receive you again with your kindred.

But before she had yet ended speaking, the young man said, Whom wait you⌃ for? I obey not the commandment of the king, but I hearken to the commandment of the law that was given to our fathers through Moses.

But I, as my kindred, give up both body and soul for the laws of our fathers, calling upon God that he may speedily become gracious to the nation; and that you amidst trials and plagues may confess that he alone is God;

But the king, falling into a rage, handled him worse than all the rest, being exasperated at his mocking.

Let it then suffice to have said thus much concerning the enforcement of sacrificial feasts and the king’s exceeding barbarities.

But Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, and those who were with him, making their way privily into the villages, called to them their kinsfolk; and taking to them such as had continued in the Jews’ religion, gathered together as many as six thousand.