down from the mountains, and to give battle to Antiochus's
generals, when he beat them, and drove them out of Judea. So he
came to the government by this his success, and became the prince
of his own people by their own free consent, and then died,
leaving the government to Judas, his eldest son.

4. Now Judas, supposing that Antiochus would not lie still,
gathered an army out of his own countrymen, and was the first
that made a league of friendship with the Romans, and drove
Epiphanes out of the country when he had made a second expedition
into it, and this by giving him a great defeat there; and when he
was warmed by this great success, he made an assault upon the
garrison that was in the city, for it had not been cut off
hitherto; so he ejected them out of the upper city, and drove the
soldiers into the lower, which part of the city was called the
Citadel. He then got the temple under his power, and cleansed the
whole place, and walled it round about, and made new vessels for
sacred ministrations, and brought them into the temple, because
the former vessels had been profaned. He also built another
altar, and began to offer the sacrifices; and when the city had
already received its sacred constitution again, Antiochus died;
whose son Antiochus succeeded him in the kingdom, and in his
hatred to the Jews also.

5. So this Antiochus got together fifty thousand footmen, and
five thousand horsemen, and fourscore elephants, and marched
through Judea into the mountainous parts. He then took Bethsura,
which was a small city; but at a place called Bethzacharis, where
the passage was narrow, Judas met him with his army. However,
before the forces joined battle, Judas's brother Eleazar, seeing