the seventy judges brought in their verdict that the person
accused was not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with
him, than to have his death laid at their doors; hereupon there
arose a great clamor of the zealots upon his acquittal, and they
all had indignation at the judges for not understanding that the
authority that was given them was but in jest. So two of the
boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple,
and slew him; and as he fell down dead, they bantered him, and
said, "Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more
sure acquittal to thee than the other." They also threw him down
from the
temple immediately into the valley beneath it. Moreover, they
struck the judges with the backs of their swords, by way of
abuse, and thrust them out of the court of the temple, and spared
their lives with no other design than that, when they were
dispersed among the people in the city, they might
become their messengers, to let them know they were no
better than slaves.

5. But by this time the Idumeans repented of their coming, and
were displeased at what had been done; and when they were
assembled together by one of the zealots, who had
come privately to them, he declared to them what a number of
wicked pranks they had themselves done in conjunction with those
that invited them, and gave a particular account of what
mischiefs had been done against their metropolis. He said that
they had taken arms, as though the high priests were betraying
their metropolis to the Romans, but had
found no indication of any such treachery; but that they had
succored those that had pretended to believe such a thing, while