with gifts, with horses also and cattle, beside the other things which have been added by vow for the temple of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.
And this was the number of them: A thousand golden cups, a thousand cups of silver, censers of silver twenty nine, vials of gold thirty, and of silver two thousand four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand.
They kill and are slain, and transgress not the king’s commandment: if they get the victory, they bring all to the king, as well the plunder, as all things else.
and to send away all the vessels that were taken out of Jerusalem, which Cyrus set apart, when he vowed to destroy Babylon, and vowed to send them again there.
You did also vow to build up the temple, which the Edomites burned when Judea was made desolate by the Chaldeans.
and that there should be yearly given twenty talents to the building of the temple, until the time that it were built;
and other ten talents yearly, for burnt offerings to be presented upon the altar every day, as they had a commandment to offer seventeen:
for to them said Nehemias and Attharias, that they should not be partakers of the holy things, till there arose up a high priest wearing Urim and Thummim.
And certain of the chief men of their families, when they came to the temple of God that is in Jerusalem, vowed to set up the house again in its own place according to their ability,
and to give into the holy treasury of the works a thousand pounds of gold, five thousand of silver, and a hundred priestly vestments.
Then stood up Jesus the son of Josedek, and his kindred the priests, and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and his kindred, and made ready the altar of the God of Israel,
to offer burned sacrifices upon it, according as it is expressly commanded in the book of Moses the man of God.
And certain were gathered to them out of the other nations of the land, and they erected the altar upon its own place, because all the nations of the land were at enmity with them, and oppressed them; and they offered sacrifices according to the time, and burnt offerings to the Lord both morning and evening.
Also they held the feast of tabernacles, as it is commanded in the law, and offered sacrifices daily, as was meet:
and after that, the continual oblations, and the sacrifices of the Sabbaths, and of the new moons, and of all the consecrated feasts.
And all those who had made any vow to God began to offer sacrifices to God from the new moon of the seventh month, although the temple of God was not yet built.
and they laid the foundation of the temple of God on the new moon of the second month, in the second year after they were come to Jewry and Jerusalem.
For we likewise, as you⌃, do obey your Lord, and do sacrifice to him from the days of Asbasareth the king of the Assyrians, who brought us hither.
In the first year of the reign of Cyrus king Cyrus commanded to build up the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, where they do sacrifice with continual fire:
and that out of the tribute of Coelesyria and Phoenicia a portion be carefully given these men for the sacrifices of the Lord, that is, to Zorobabel the governor, for bullocks, and rams, and lambs;
and also corn, salt, wine and oil, and that continually every year without further question, according as the priests that be in Jerusalem shall signify to be daily spent:
that drink offerings may be made to the Most High God for the king and for his children, and that they may pray for their lives.
And to the dedication of the temple of the Lord they offered a hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs;
and twelve he-goats for the sin of all Israel, according to the number of the twelve princes of the tribes of Israel.
And the children of Israel that came out of the captivity held the passover the fourteenth day of the first month, when the priests and the Levites were sanctified together,
and they offered the passover for all them of the captivity, and for their kindred the priests, and for themselves.
and carry the gifts to the Lord of Israel to Jerusalem, which I and my friends have vowed; and that all the gold and silver that can be found in the country of Babylonia for the Lord in Jerusalem,
with that also which is given of the people for the temple of the Lord their God that is at Jerusalem, be collected: even the gold and silver for bullocks, rams, and lambs, and things thereto appertaining;
to the end that they may offer sacrifices to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord their God, which is in Jerusalem.
to the sum of a hundred talents of silver, likewise also of wheat even to a hundred measures, and a hundred firkins of wine, and salt in abundance.
and I weighed them the silver, and the gold, and the holy vessels of the house of our Lord, which the king, and his counselors, and the nobles, and all Israel, had given.
And I said to them, Both you⌃ are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the gold and the silver are a vow to the Lord, the Lord of our fathers.
Watch you⌃, and keep them till you⌃ deliver them to the chiefs of the priests and Levites, and to the principal men of the families of Israel, in Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of our Lord.
So the priests and the Levites, who received the silver and the gold and the vessels which were in Jerusalem, brought them into the temple of the Lord.
Moreover those who were come out of the captivity offered sacrifices to the Lord, the God of Israel, even twelve bullocks for all Israel, fourscore and sixteen rams,
threescore and twelve lambs, goats for a peace offering, twelve; all of them a sacrifice to the Lord.
So all those who were moved at the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, assembled to me, while I mourned for the iniquity: but I sat still full of heaviness until the evening sacrifice.
And they gave their hands to put away their wives, and to offer rams to make reconcilement for their error.
But I drew his own sword and beheaded him, and removed reproach from the children of Israel.
But Dositheus, called the son of Drimulus, by birth a Jew, afterward a renegade from the laws and observances of his country, conveyed Ptolemy away, and made an obscure person lie down in his stead in the tent. It befell this man to receive the fate which was meant for the other.
Having arrived at Jerusalem, sacrificed, and offered thank-offerings to the Greatest God, and done whatever else was suitable to the sanctity of the place, and entered the inner court,
And when they told him that this was not permissible, none of the nation, no, nor even the priests in general, but only the supreme high priest of all, and he only once in a year, being allowed to go in, he would by no means give way.
And when the priests fell down in their sacred vestments imploring the Greatest God to come and help in time of need, and to avert the violence of the fierce aggressor, and when they filled the temple with lamentations and tears,
Calling out to arms, and to die bravely in defence of the law of their fathers, they created a great uproar in the place, and were with difficulty brought back by the aged and the elders to the station of prayer which they had occupied before.
That entrance to their own temple was to be refused to all those who would not sacrifice; that all the Jews were to be registered among the common people; that those who resisted were to be forcibly seized and put to death;
A nobler spirit, however, prompted the majority to cling to their religious observances, and by paying money that they might live unmolested, these sought to escape the registration:
To outward appearance they received us willingly; but belied that appearance by their deeds. When we were eager to enter their temple, and to honor it with the most beautiful and exquisite gifts,
Hermon, and all his friends, pointed out the preparation of the animals. They are ready, O king, according to your own strict injunction.
Your parents, or your children, were they here, to these wild beasts a large repast they should have furnished; not these innocent Jews, who me and my forefathers loyally have served.
Had it not been for familiar friendship, and the claims of your office, your life should have gone for theirs.
He would also invade Judea, and level its towns with fire and the sword; and destroy that temple which the heathen might not enter, and prevent sacrifices ever after being offered up there.
When the three friends in the land of Babylon of their own will exposed their lives to the fire rather than serve vain things, you did send a dewy coolness through the fiery furnace, and bring the fire upon all their adversaries.
because the sins of their fathers are increased in them: for they have forgotten me, and have done sacrifice to strange gods.
When you⌃ offer oblations to me, I will turn my face from you: for your solemn feast days, your new moons, and your circumcisions of the flesh, have I rejected.
whom you commanded to build a city to your name, and to offer oblations to you therein of your own.
After these years shall my son Christ die of those who, and all that have the breath of life.
and Samuel in the days of Saul; and David for the plague: and Solomon for those who should worship in the sanctuary:
but shall go into a field of flowers, where no house is built, and eat only of the flowers of the field; and you shall taste no flesh, and shall drink no wine, but shall eat flowers only;)
and whereas she said to you, that she has been thirty years barren, it is, because there were three thousand years in the world wherein there was no offering as yet offered in her.
And it came to pass after three thousand years that Solomon built the city, and offered offerings: then it was that the barren bare a son.
For all these, contemning pains even to death, by this contempt, demonstrated that reasoning has command over the passions.
For their virtues, then, it is right that I should commend those men who died with their mother at this time in behalf of rectitude; and for their honors, I may count them happy.
For they, winning admiration not only from men in general, but even from the persecutors, for their manliness and endurance, became the means of the destruction of the tyranny against their nation, having conquered the tyrant by their endurance, so that by them their country was purified.
For the law conquers even affection toward parents, not surrendering virtue on their account.
Wherefore, setting up reasoning in opposition to his desire, he poured out the draught to God.
for even women, because they continued to circumcise their children, were flung down a precipice along with them, knowing beforehand of the punishment.
And when many had been seized, a foremost man of the assembly, a Hebrew, by name Eleazar, a priest by family, by profession a lawyer, and advanced in years, and for this reason known to many of the king’s followers, was brought near to him.
I would counsel you, old man, before your tortures begin, to taste the swine’s flesh, and save your life; for I feel respect for your age and hoary head, which since you have had so long, you appear to me to be no philosopher in retaining the superstition of the Jews.
nor will I transgress the sacred oaths of my forefathers to keep the law.
I will not so compassionate my old age, as on my account to break the law of my country.
And first, they stripped the old man, adorned as he was with the comeliness of piety.
Why do you unreasonably destroy yourself, O Eleazar, with these miseries?
And Eleazar, as though the advice more painfully tortured him, cried out,
for it were irrational, if having lived up to old age in all truth, and having scrupulously guarded our character for it, we should now turn back,
It would be disgraceful if we should live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,
and be condemned by the tyrant for unmanliness, by not contending to the death for our divine law.
Wherefore do you, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion.
Beholding him so high-minded against misery, and not changing at their pity, they led him to the fire:
And he being at length burned down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes Godward, and said,
You know, O God, that when I might have been saved, I am slain for the sake of the law by tortures of fire.
Be merciful to your people, and be satisfied with the punishment of me on their account.
Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in recompense for theirs.
Thus speaking, the holy man departed, noble in his torments, and even to the agonies of death resisted in his reasoning for the sake of the law.
O priest worthy of the priesthood! you did not pollute your sacred teeth; nor make your appetite, which had always embraced the clean and lawful, a partaker of profanity.
Of such a character ought those to be who perform the duties of the law at the risk of their own blood, and defend it with generous sweat by sufferings even to death.
For as father Aaron, armed with a censer, hastening through the consuming fire, vanquished the flame-bearing angel,
so, Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron, wasted away by the fire, did not give up his reasoning.
If, then, an old man, through religion, despised tortures even to death, confessedly religious reasoning is ruler of the passions.
Whence it is, that even boys, imbued with the philosophy of religious reasoning, have conquered still more bitter tortures:
And let us bear in mind that we shall be dying as rebels.
And Divine Justice will pardon us if we fear the king through necessity.
Let us not oppose necessity, nor seek vain-glory by our own excruciation.
Whence has such angry zeal taken root in us, and such fatal obstinacy approved itself to us, when we might live unmolested by the king?
Why delay you, O tyrant? for we are readier to die than to transgress the injunctions of our fathers.
Make the attempt, then, O tyrant; and if you put us to death for our religion, think not that you harm us by torturing us.
And the noble youth, extended upon this, became dislocated.
And with every member disjointed, he exclaimed in expostulation,
And although the framework of his bones was now destroyed the high-minded and Abrahamic youth did not groan.
But, as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings, saying
Imitate me, O kindred, nor ever desert your station, nor abjure my brotherhood in courage: fight the holy and honorable fight of religion;












