forty-seventh year, and, crossing the Euphrates, he went through the upper
countries.

[Sidenote: I Macc. 3:38-41]
Now Lysias chose Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, and Nicanor, and Gorgias,
influential men among the king's Friends, and with them sent forty
thousand footmen and seven thousand horsemen to go into the land of Judah
to destroy it, as the king had ordered. And they set out with all their
army and pitched their camp near Emmaus in the plain. And the merchants of
the country heard the rumors about them, and taking silver and gold in
large quantities, and shackles, they came into the camp to get the
Israelites for slaves. There were added to them the forces of Syria and of
the Philistines.

[Sidenote: I Macc. 3:42, 43, 46-54]
Then Judas and his brothers saw that evils were increasing and that the
forces were encamping in their territory, and when they learned of the
commands which the king had given to destroy the people and make an end of
them, they said to each other,

Let us raise up the ruin of our people
And let us fight for our people and the sanctuary;

So they gathered together and came to Mizpeh, opposite Jerusalem; for in
Mizpeh there was a place of prayer for Israel. And they fasted that day,
and put sackcloth and ashes on their heads and tore their clothes, and
spread out the book of the law--one of those in which the heathen had been
painting images of their idols. And they brought the priests' garments
with the first-fruits, and the tithes, and they cut the hair of the
Nazirites who had accomplished their days. And they cried aloud toward