a certain part
of his forces, and of his elephants, and charged him to bring up his son
Antiochus with all possible care, until he came back; and that he should
conquer Judea, and take its inhabitants for slaves, and utterly destroy
Jerusalem, and abolish the whole nation. And when king Antiochus had
given these things in charge to Lysias, he went into Persia; and in the
hundred and forty-seventh year he passed over Euphrates, and went to the
superior provinces.

3. Upon this Lysias chose Ptolemy, the son of Dorymenes, and Nicanor,
and Gorgias, very potent men among the king's friends, and delivered to
them forty thousand foot soldiers, and seven thousand horsemen, and
sent them against Judea, who came as far as the city Emmaus, and pitched
their camp in the plain country. There came also to them auxiliaries
out of Syria, and the country round about; as also many of the runagate
Jews. And besides these came some merchants to buy those that should be
carried captives, [having bonds with them to bind those that should be
made prisoners,] with that silver and gold which they were to pay for
their price. And when Judas saw their camp, and how numerous their
enemies were, he persuaded his own soldiers to be of good courage,
and exhorted them to place their hopes of victory in God, and to make
supplication to him, according to the custom of their country, clothed
in sackcloth; and to show what was their usual habit of supplication in
the greatest dangers, and thereby to prevail with God to grant you the
victory over your enemies. So he set them in their ancient order of
battle used by their forefathers, under their captains of thousands,
and other officers, and dismissed such as were newly married, as well as
those that had newly gained possessions, that they might not fight in
a cowardly manner, out of an inordinate love of life, in order to enjoy
those blessings. When he had thus disposed his soldiers, he encouraged
them to fight by the following speech, which he made to them: "O my
fellow soldiers, no other time remains more opportune than the present
for courage and contempt of dangers; for if you now fight manfully, you
may recover your liberty, which, as it is a thing of itself agreeable to
all men, so it proves to be to us much more desirable, by its affording
us the liberty of worshipping God. Since therefore you are in such
circumstances at present, you must either recover that liberty, and so
regain a happy and bles