neither were they unacquainted with the practices of their
country; but if, besides these, they should say, they loved me
because I was a priest, they should reply, that two of these were
priests also.

40. Now, when they had given Jonathan and his companions these
instructions, they gave them forty thousand [drachmae] out of the
public money: but when they heard that there was a certain
Galilean that then sojourned at Jerusalem, whose name was Jesus,
who had about him a band of six hundred armed men, they sent for
him, and gave him three months pay, and gave him orders to follow
Jonathan and his companions, and be obedient to them. They also
gave money to three hundred men that were citizens of Jerusalem,
to maintain them all, and ordered them also to follow the
ambassadors; and when they had complied, and were gotten ready
for the march, Jonathan and his companions went out with them,
having along with them John's brother and a hundred armed men.
The charge that was given them by those that sent them was this:
That if I would voluntarily lay down my arms, they should send me
alive to the city of Jerusalem; but that, in case I opposed them,
they should kill me, and fear nothing; for that it was their
command for them so to do. They also wrote to John to make all
ready for fighting me, and gave orders to the inhabitants of
Sepphoris, and Gabara, and Tiberins, to send auxiliaries to John.

41. Now, as my father wrote me an account of this, (for Jesus the
son of Gamala, who was present in that council, a friend and
companion of mine, told him of it,) I was very much troubled, as
discovering thereby that my fellow citizens proved so ungrateful
to me, as, out of envy, to give order that I should be slain: my