Page:KJV 1772 Oxford Edition, vol. 2.djvu/191

Apocrypha. 39. fo il Or, common affairs. I Or, fil ls wins.

16 And the holy temple, which before he had spoiled, he would garnish with goodly gifts, and restore all the holy ves sels with many more, and d out of his own revenue defray the charges belonging to the sacrifices :

17 Yea, and that also he would become a Jew himself, and go through all the world that was inhabited, and declare the power of God.

18 But for all this his pains would not cease : for the just judgment of God was come upon him : therefore despairing of his health, he wrote unto the Jews the letters underwritten, containing the form of a supplication, after this manner :

19 Antiochus, king and governor, to the good Jews his citizens wilheth much joy, health, and prosperity :

20 If ye and your children fare well, and your affairs be to your contentment, I give very great thanks to God, having my hope in heaven.

21 As for me, I was weak, or else I would have remembered kindly your honour and good will. Returning out of Persia, and being taken with a grievous disease, I thought it necessary to care for the com mon safety of all :

22 Not distrusting mine health, but hav ing great hope to escape this sickness.

23 But considering that even my father, at what time he led an army into the high countries, appointed a successor,

24 To the end that, if any thing fell out contrary to expectation, or if any tidings were brought that were grievous, they of the land, knowing to whom || the state was left, might not be troubled :

25 Again, considering how that the princes that are borderers and neighbours unto my kingdom wait for opportunities, and expect what mall be the event, I have appointed my son Antiochus king, whom I often committed and commended unto many of you, when I went up into the high provinces ; to whom I have written as followeth :

26 Therefore I pray and request you to re member the benefits that I have done unto you generally, and in special, and that every man will be still faithful to me and my son.

27 For I am persuaded that he || under standing my mind will favourably and gra ciously yield to your desires.

28 Thus the murderer and blasphemer having suffered most grievously, as he entreated other men, so died he a miser able death in a strange country in the mountains.

29 And Philip, that was brought up c^s°rsT with him, carried away his body, who also Cjr. ,6+. fearing the son of Antiochus went into Egypt to Ptolemeus Philometor.

OW Maccabeus and his company, the Lord guiding them, recovered the temple and the city :

2 But the altars which the heathen had built in the open street, and also the cha pels, they pulled down.

3 And having cleansed the temple * they ' 1 Mac; made another altar, and striking stones *' *7' they took fire out of them, and offered a sacrifice after two years, and set forth in cense, and lights, and shewbread.

4 When that was done, they fell flat down, and besought the Lord that they might come no more into such troubles ; but if they sinned any more against him, that he himself would chasten them with mercy, and that they might not be delivered unto the blasphemous and barbarous nations.

5 Now bupon the fame day that theb1Mac. strangers profaned the temple, on the very ** S2' i<h fame day it was cleansed again, even the five and twentieth day of the same month, which is Casleu.

6 c And they kept eight days with glad ness, as in the feast of the tabernacles, re membering that not long afore they had held the feast of the tabernacles, when, as they wandered in the mountains and dens like beasts.

7 Therefore they bare branches, and fair boughs, and palms also, and fang psalms unto him that had given them good suc cess in cleansing his place.

8 J They ordained also by a common * 1 Ml<=' statute and decree, That every year those ** s'' days should be kept of the whole nation of the Jews.

p And this was the end of Antiochus, called Epiphanes.

10 Now will we declare the acts of An tiochus Eupator, who was the son of this wicked man, gathering briefly the calami ties of the wars.

11 So when he was come to the crown, he set one Lysias over the affairs of his