ophet,
and by every seer, saying, "Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my
commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I
commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the
prophets." Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their
hearts, like to the hearts of their fathers, who believed not in the
Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that
he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified
unto them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after
the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had
charged them that they should not do like them. And they forsook all
the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images,
even two calves, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served
Baal. And they {413} burned their sons and their daughters as
sacrifice, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves
to do that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to
anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them
out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked
in the statutes of Israel which they made. And the Lord rejected all
the people of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the
hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he rent
Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of
Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and
made them sin a great sin. And the children of Israel walked in all
the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; until
the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he spoke by all his
servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own
land to Assyria, unto this day.

{414}

{415}

TALES OF THE MACCABEES

{416}

{417}

TALES OF THE MACCABEES

PERSONS OF THE STORY.

_Mattathias, a Jewish priest_.

_Sons of Mattathias_.
_John_,
_Simon_,
_Judas_,
_Eleazar_,
_Jonathan_,

_Alexander the Great_.

_Antiochus, king of Syria_.

_Syrian generals under Antiochus_.
_Apollonius_,
_Seron_,
_Ptolemy_,
_Nicanor_,
_Gorgias_,

_Lysias, regent of Syria_.

_Philip, pretender to Syrian crown_.

_Demetrius I., king of Syria_.

_Syrian generals under Demetrius_.
_Bacchide