1 Maccabees

No. 28 1 Maccabees 15:32-41
First Maccabees tells how a priestly family, the Maccabees, led a revolt against the Greek kings of Syria who had outlawed Jewish worship and defiled the temple. By this chapter the fighting has run through...
No. 67 1 Maccabees 3:1-9
First Maccabees tells the revolt against the Greek kings of Syria who outlawed Jewish practice and desecrated the temple in the 160s BC. The rising began with an old priest, Mattathias, who refused to...
No. 139 1 Maccabees 13:1-6
The Maccabean revolt has cost this family nearly everything. The father Mattathias is dead. Judas, who led the fighting, is dead. Jonathan has just been captured by the Seleucid general Tryphon, who is now...
No. 164 1 Maccabees 9:28-34
Judas Maccabeus is dead, killed in battle against a much larger Seleucid force. This passage is his followers deciding what happens next, and their opening line is bleaker than anything a leader would want...
No. 167 1 Maccabees 1:41-53
This passage is the decree that started the Maccabean revolt, and its opening sentence is chilling in its reasonableness: King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that each...
No. 178 1 Maccabees 13:17-24
Simon's brother Jonathan is a hostage of the Seleucid general Tryphon, who has sent word that he will release him for a hundred talents of silver and Jonathan's two sons as guarantee. This passage is Simon's...
No. 216 1 Maccabees 3:23-37
First Maccabees tells the story of a revolt in the 160s before Christ, when the Greek king Antiochus the Fourth outlawed the Torah, defiled the temple in Jerusalem, and tried to erase Jewish practice. Judas...
No. 243 1 Maccabees 11:67-74
This is the generation after Judas Maccabeus, when his brother Jonathan has taken up the leadership of the Jewish forces. Marching through Galilee near Hazor, Jonathan walks straight into an ambush his scouts...
No. 321 1 Maccabees 10:15-20
For years the Maccabees had been hunted rebels, fighting the Seleucid Empire that outlawed their faith. This passage catches the moment the tables turn, and it turns out that being courted can be more...
No. 337 1 Maccabees 14:1-15
After decades of war and persecution, the book of Maccabees pauses to describe a golden age, the peace that came to Israel under the leadership of Simon. The land had rest, the text says, all the days of...
No. 347 1 Maccabees 9:35-42
This is a dark and honest little story from the years after Judas Maccabeus died, when his brothers Jonathan and Simon were fighting to survive. Jonathan had sent their brother John to the Nabateans with the...
No. 417 1 Maccabees 11:30-37
This passage is a letter from King Demetrius to Jonathan and the Jewish nation, and it is dripping with generosity. The king confirms the borders of Judea, adds three districts to their territory, and then...
No. 419 1 Maccabees 13:36-40
This short royal letter marks a milestone that generations of Jews had bled for. King Demetrius writes to Simon, now the high priest, and grants what amounts to independence: a firm peace, the confirmation of...
No. 441 1 Maccabees 6:40-47
This is a battle scene, and at its center is one man's spectacular, tragic act of courage. The Seleucid army is enormous and terrifying, complete with war elephants carrying armored towers, and the noise of...
No. 480 1 Maccabees 2:14-18
To feel the weight of this scene, you need the setting. The Greek king Antiochus had outlawed the practice of the Jewish faith, on pain of death, and sent officers through the towns forcing the people to...
No. 566 1 Maccabees 2:39-48
During the persecution under Antiochus, a group of faithful Jews had fled to hide in the wilderness, and when the king's forces attacked them on the Sabbath, they refused to lift a hand in self-defense,...
No. 575 1 Maccabees 10:1-6
Two rival kings, Demetrius and Alexander, are fighting for the throne, and suddenly both of them start courting Jonathan, the leader of the Jews, whom they had previously treated as an enemy. Here it is...
No. 587 1 Maccabees 10:7-14
Jonathan has just been handed a season of unexpected favor. The rival kings are courting him, hostages held against his people are released, and he suddenly has authority and a free hand where before there had...
No. 600 1 Maccabees 9:14-18
Judas Maccabeus is one of the great heroes of Jewish history, the leader who against impossible odds fought to rescue his people and their faith, whose victories fill the earlier chapters of the book. And this...
No. 619 1 Maccabees 2:19-26
This is the moment the Maccabean revolt ignites. The king's officers have come to the town of Modin to force the Jews to sacrifice to idols, offering the priest Mattathias wealth and honor to go first. And...
No. 644 1 Maccabees 5:21-27
These verses catch the Maccabee brothers doing something that runs against the instinct of self-preservation. Word has come that scattered communities of their fellow Jews, in Galilee and across the Jordan in...
No. 646 1 Maccabees 10:67-73
An enemy general named Apollonius sends Jonathan a message designed to intimidate, and it is a masterclass in the art of the taunt. You alone are setting yourself against us, he says; come down from your hills...
No. 650 1 Maccabees 8:17-22
The first book of Maccabees tells the Jewish revolt against the Greek kings who ruled the land in the 160s BC. Judas Maccabeus has won a run of battles against the Seleucids, and this chapter opens with a...
No. 691 1 Maccabees 4:1-5
The revolt in First Maccabees has reached open war, and this is a night of maneuver. Gorgias, one of the Seleucid generals, takes five thousand foot and a thousand picked cavalry and moves out in the dark,...
No. 727 1 Maccabees 7:1-9
First Maccabees turns for a moment to the palace politics behind the war. Demetrius, who had been held as a hostage in Rome, slips away, lands with a few men, and makes his move for the Seleucid throne. The...
No. 762 1 Maccabees 12:6-18
First Maccabees preserves a letter from Jonathan, now high priest and leader of the Jews, to the distant city of Sparta. He is renewing an old and rather legendary bond; an earlier Spartan king had once...
No. 799 1 Maccabees 4:6-11
It is dawn, and Judas Maccabeus stands in the plain with three thousand men who do not have the armor and swords they wish they had, looking across at the enemy camp: strong, fortified, ringed with cavalry,...
No. 809 1 Maccabees 12:46-53
Jonathan, the leader of the Jews after his brother Judas, makes a fatal mistake: he trusts a treacherous man. Tryphon, plotting against him, lures him with friendly words into the city of Ptolemais, and...
No. 876 1 Maccabees 11:8-12
This is the tangled power politics of the Maccabean era. King Ptolemy of Egypt, marching up the coast, decides to betray his ally Alexander. He sends word to Demetrius offering an alliance, takes back the...
No. 891 1 Maccabees 10:51-58
Back in the political maneuvering of First Maccabees. Alexander, having defeated Demetrius and taken the throne, sends to Ptolemy king of Egypt proposing an alliance sealed by marriage: give me your daughter...
No. 1009 1 Maccabees 16:11-17
This is a grim turn near the end of First Maccabees. Ptolemy son of Abubus, made governor of the plain of Jericho and married into the high priest's family, grows ambitious. His heart is lifted up, and he...
No. 1099 1 Maccabees 4:12-25
Judas Maccabeus and his outnumbered force meet the Gentile army. His men sound trumpets, join battle, and the enemy is routed and pursued. But in the middle of the victory Judas restrains his men with a...
No. 1165 1 Maccabees 5:28-34
Judas Maccabeus is on campaign, rescuing scattered Jewish communities under attack. He takes a city, then marches through the night to a besieged stronghold where fellow Jews are trapped, the enemy massing...
No. 1174 1 Maccabees 7:33-38
The Seleucid general Nicanor comes up to Mount Zion, where the priests come out peaceably to greet him and show him the sacrifice being offered for the king. He responds with mockery and contempt, and then, in...
No. 1180 1 Maccabees 3:16-22
Judas Maccabeus goes out with a small band to meet a large, well-equipped enemy army. His men are frightened and faint with hunger: how can we, a small company, fight so great and strong a multitude, and we...
No. 1278 1 Maccabees 7:26-32
The Seleucid king sends Nicanor, a commander who hates Israel, to destroy the people. But Nicanor does not begin with open war. He sends messengers to Judas with words of peace: let there be no fighting...
No. 1314 1 Maccabees 10:21-25
Jonathan the Maccabee has just been made high priest, and suddenly he is a man everyone wants. Two rival claimants to the Seleucid throne, Alexander and Demetrius, both scramble to win the Jews to their side....
No. 1316 1 Maccabees 12:33-38
Jonathan and Simon, the Maccabee brothers, are busy with the practical work of securing Judea. Simon marches to Joppa and garrisons it before it can be handed to the enemy; Jonathan gathers the elders and...
No. 1339 1 Maccabees 10:46-50
Two rival kings, Alexander and Demetrius, are competing for the loyalty of the Jews. Demetrius has sent lavish promises and concessions. But when Jonathan and the people hear his words, they give them no...
No. 1355 1 Maccabees 5:9-13
The Gentiles surrounding the Israelites in Gilead have banded together to destroy them. The Jews there flee to the stronghold of Dathema and send an urgent letter to Judas Maccabeus and his brothers: the...
No. 1383 1 Maccabees 15:1-9
Antiochus, a claimant to the Seleucid throne, writes to Simon, the leader of the Jews, from across the sea. Needing Simon's support against a rival, he showers him with promises: he confirms all the tax...
No. 1453 1 Maccabees 1:54-64
This passage records the height of Antiochus's persecution of the Jews. He set up the abomination of desolation on the altar of the temple, built pagan altars throughout Judah, burned the books of the law, and...
No. 1454 1 Maccabees 12:19-23
This passage preserves a curious ancient letter. Arius, king of the Spartans, has written to Onias, the high priest of the Jews, with a striking claim: it has been found in writing that the Spartans and the...
No. 1478 1 Maccabees 11:1-7
The king of Egypt gathers an enormous army and a fleet and marches into Syria, but his purpose is hidden. He comes, the text says, with words of peace, seeking by deceit to make himself master of the kingdom...
No. 1539 1 Maccabees 11:13-19
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, having entered Antioch, crowns himself, putting two crowns on his head, the crown of Egypt and the crown of Asia, master now of two kingdoms. He has schemed and fought his way to this...
No. 1553 1 Maccabees 6:28-39
The Seleucid king marches against the Maccabees with an overwhelming army: a hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand cavalry, and thirty-two war elephants trained for battle. Each elephant is prepared...
No. 1581 1 Maccabees 9:19-27
Judas Maccabeus, the leader who had saved Israel from its oppressors, falls in battle. His brothers bury him in the tomb of their ancestors, and all Israel mourns him many days, lamenting the fallen savior of...
No. 1604 1 Maccabees 7:10-17
Bacchides and Alcimus come against Judah with a great army, sending messengers with deceitful words of peace. The people do not trust them at first, seeing the army. But a group of scribes, and the devout...
No. 1625 1 Maccabees 10:82-89
In battle, Jonathan's brother Simon routs the enemy cavalry, who flee for safety into Azotus and into the temple of their god Dagon. But there is no safety there. Jonathan burns Azotus and its surrounding...
No. 1639 1 Maccabees 9:43-53
Jonathan and his men are caught in a trap. Bacchides comes against them with a great army on the Sabbath, and Jonathan surveys their position: the battle is before them and behind them, the Jordan on either...
No. 1724 1 Maccabees 7:39-50
Nicanor, the Syrian general, has threatened the temple and spoken arrogantly against it. Now his army meets Judas Maccabeus at Adasa. Judas has only three thousand men, and before the battle he prays,...
No. 1729 1 Maccabees 5:55-62
While Judas and his brothers are winning victories elsewhere, two other commanders, Joseph and Azarias, grow restless. Hearing of the exploits of Judas, they say to one another, let us also make a name for...
No. 1784 1 Maccabees 11:20-29
Jonathan is besieging the enemy citadel in Jerusalem when lawless men, opponents from among his own nation, go to the king to accuse him. The king, angered, summons Jonathan to answer for himself. Rather than...
No. 1786 1 Maccabees 6:1-7
King Antiochus, who had desecrated the temple and persecuted God's people, is traveling through the eastern provinces when he hears of a wealthy temple in Persia and comes to plunder it. But his plan is...
No. 1800 1 Maccabees 11:60-66
Jonathan campaigns through the region, welcomed by some cities and resisted by others, extending the influence of his people. When he hears that enemy commanders have come to Galilee with a large army,...
No. 1853 1 Maccabees 14:21-27
The record tells of alliances renewed and honors received in the days of Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers to lead. And it records the gratitude of the people. When they consider all that Simon and his...
No. 1867 1 Maccabees 10:26-33
King Demetrius, competing for the loyalty of the Jews against a rival, sends them a letter full of generous offers. Because you have kept faith with us, he writes, continue to do so, and we will repay you with...
No. 1868 1 Maccabees 6:55-63
Pressed by trouble at home, the general Lysias urges the young king to make peace with the Jews, letting them live by their own laws, since it was the forbidding of those laws that had provoked the war. The...
No. 1899 1 Maccabees 10:34-45
Among the many concessions the king grants the Jews is a provision about the temple: whoever flees to the temple at Jerusalem, or within its borders, whether owing money to the king or in trouble over any...
No. 1927 1 Maccabees 5:14-20
As one report of attack is still being read, more messengers arrive with torn clothes: the surrounding peoples have gathered to destroy the Jews of Galilee and Gilead. Hearing this, Judas and the people...
No. 1952 1 Maccabees 9:7-13
Judas Maccabeus faces a desperate battle. His army has melted away, and he is left with only a few against a great force. Those who remain urge him to flee and save his life, to withdraw and fight another day,...
No. 2039 1 Maccabees 13:12-16
The Maccabean struggle reaches a hard moment. Jonathan, the leader of the Jews, has been captured by Tryphon and held under guard. Into this leaderless gap steps his brother Simon. When Tryphon advances toward...
No. 2055 1 Maccabees 13:31-35
The chapter sets two men side by side. Tryphon deceives and murders the young king Antiochus, seizes the crown for himself, and brings calamity on the land, grasping power through treachery and leaving ruin...
No. 2068 1 Maccabees 12:1-5
Jonathan, leading the Jewish nation, sees that the time is favorable, and he takes an initiative of peace rather than war. He chooses men and sends them to Rome to confirm and renew the friendship the Jews had...
No. 2076 1 Maccabees 10:74-81
Jonathan and his men are drawn into battle with Apollonius, who has set a hidden ambush of a thousand cavalry behind them. When the trap is sprung, Jonathan's army is surrounded, and the enemy shoots arrows at...
No. 2100 1 Maccabees 5:40-44
As Judas Maccabeus approaches an enemy army across a stream, the enemy commander Timotheus reveals his own reading of the situation to his captains. If Judas crosses over to us first, he says, we will not be...
No. 2182 1 Maccabees 2:27-33
When a wicked king demands that the Jews abandon their faith and law, the priest Mattathias raises a rallying cry. Whoever is zealous for the law and maintains the covenant, he shouts, let him follow me. And...
No. 2218 1 Maccabees 8:23-32
The record of the treaty between Rome and the Jewish people lays out its terms: mutual defense, no aid to each other's enemies, faithful support in war. And within the terms comes a phrase that governs how the...
No. 2223 1 Maccabees 16:1-10
Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers, has grown old, and a new threat arises against his people. Rather than going out himself, he calls his two sons, Judas and John, and hands the work to them. I and my...
No. 2311 1 Maccabees 14:28-43
The people gather to honor Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers, with a decree recording all he had done for them. He and his family had put themselves in danger for their nation; he had fought for his...
No. 2392 1 Maccabees 14:44-49
First Maccabees records the people formally confirming Simon as their high priest and leader, after years of his family delivering them. The decree is not to be nullified or opposed; then it is engraved on...
No. 2415 1 Maccabees 1:1-9
First Maccabees opens with a whirlwind summary of Alexander the Great. He came out of the west, struck down the king of Persia, fought many battles, took many strongholds, and marched to the ends of the earth....
No. 2453 1 Maccabees 14:16-20
When word spread that Jonathan of the Maccabees had died, even distant Rome and Sparta were grieved, and as soon as they heard his brother Simon had taken his place, they wrote to renew their alliance. The...
No. 2549 1 Maccabees 10:59-66
Jonathan the Maccabee is summoned by King Alexander and received with honor, given gifts, seated beside the king, clothed in royal purple. At the same time, malcontents from Israel, men described as...
No. 2600 1 Maccabees 11:38-44
King Demetrius, once he feels secure, dismisses the troops who had served his family, keeping only foreign mercenaries. The result is immediate: all the soldiers of his fathers hate him, and when a rival named...
No. 2604 1 Maccabees 3:38-53
A large army is sent to destroy Judah, and so confident are the enemies of victory that slave traders come to the camp ahead of time, silver and shackles in hand, ready to buy the Israelites as slaves before a...
No. 2630 1 Maccabees 2:6-13
Mattathias, the old priest who will spark the Maccabean revolt, first appears grieving. He sees the desecration of Jerusalem, the temple profaned, its holy vessels carried off, its people slaughtered and...
No. 2661 1 Maccabees 13:7-11
Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers, addresses a people worn down by loss. Judas is dead; Jonathan is dead; the family that had led the fight for years is nearly gone. And the people's spirit revives as...
No. 2705 1 Maccabees 5:45-54
Judas Maccabeus is leading the scattered Jews of Gilead back home to Judah, a long column of families with their children and everything they own. The fortified city of Ephron stands across the only road and...
No. 2844 1 Maccabees 16:18-24
The first book of Maccabees ends not in triumph but in a squalid palace intrigue. Ptolemy has murdered Simon the high priest, his own father-in-law, and now schemes to seize power, sending assassins to Gazara...
No. 2905 1 Maccabees 9:1-6
The Seleucid king sends a large army under Bacchides and Alcimus against Judah again. They march toward Jerusalem, and Judas Maccabeus is camped at Elasa with three thousand chosen men. But when his soldiers...
No. 2936 1 Maccabees 2:1-5
This is a short and easily skipped list: Mattathias, a priest, moves from Jerusalem to the small town of Modein, and he has five sons, John, Simon, Judas who was called Maccabeus, Eleazar, and Jonathan. Just a...
No. 3012 1 Maccabees 5:35-39
Judas Maccabeus captures a string of cities in Gilead. Then his enemy Timotheus regroups, gathering another army and hiring Arab mercenaries, and encamps beyond the brook, ready for battle. Judas sends scouts,...
No. 3014 1 Maccabees 5:63-68
Judas Maccabeus and his brothers are honored throughout Israel and among the nations; people rally to them, and they win victory after victory, tearing down pagan altars and idols. But tucked into the run of...
No. 3087 1 Maccabees 1:10-15
The persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes rises, called here a sinful root. And in those days lawless men come out of Israel itself and persuade many: let us make a covenant with the nations around us, they say, for...
No. 3090 1 Maccabees 6:8-13
The persecutor Antiochus, thwarted in his plans, falls sick with grief and comes to realize he is dying. He calls his friends and confesses: sleep has left my eyes, and my heart fails with worry. And then he...
No. 3142 1 Maccabees 4:52-61
On the twenty-fifth day of Chislev, the very day the Gentiles had profaned it, Judas and the people rededicate the altar of the temple. They offer sacrifice with songs, harps, lutes, and cymbals, and all the...
No. 3158 1 Maccabees 13:41-48
The Gentile yoke is lifted from Israel, and the years begin to be dated to Simon's rule. Simon besieges the town of Gazara and breaches its wall. The terrified people go up on the walls with their wives and...
No. 3235 1 Maccabees 11:45-53
The people of Antioch rise in revolt against King Demetrius, who is trapped in his palace. He calls the Jews to help him, and they come to his aid, putting down the uprising and saving his throne. The king...
No. 3266 1 Maccabees 4:26-33
Lysias gathers a large army to crush the Jews, and Judas Maccabeus meets him with a far smaller force. Facing the odds, Judas does not boast of his men's strength; he prays. He remembers how God once defeated...
No. 3321 1 Maccabees 1:16-28
Antiochus, flush with victory over Egypt, marches against Jerusalem and enters the sanctuary in arrogance, stripping it bare, carrying off the golden altar, the lampstand, the sacred vessels, and the hidden...
No. 3376 1 Maccabees 2:34-38
A group of the faithful, hiding in caves, are attacked on the Sabbath. Rather than break the Sabbath by fighting or even blocking the entrances of their hiding places, they choose to die, a thousand of them,...
No. 3405 1 Maccabees 13:25-30
Simon gathers the bones of his brother Jonathan and buries him among their fathers at Modin, and builds a grand monument for the family, with pillars and pyramids and carvings, raised high so it could be seen...
No. 3422 1 Maccabees 9:65-73
After long fighting, a turn toward peace comes. Jonathan and Simon prevail against Bacchides, who, realizing the war was fruitless and angry at the lawless men who had urged it on, seeks terms. Jonathan...
No. 3454 1 Maccabees 7:18-25
This is a grim account of harm done by insiders. The high priest Alcimus and his company, fellow Israelites, did more damage to their own people than even the pagan invaders, betraying and oppressing them. The...
No. 3485 1 Maccabees 6:48-54
The defenders of the sanctuary face a grinding siege, and their situation grows desperate, not because they lacked courage, but because they had no food. It was the seventh year, the Sabbath year, when the...
No. 3492 1 Maccabees 1:29-40
A royal officer comes to Jerusalem with words of peace, and the people trust him. But it is a deception: he suddenly falls on the city, plunders and burns it, and fortifies a citadel from which the enemy would...
No. 3522 1 Maccabees 3:10-15
Two commanders come against Judas Maccabeus, and their motives are laid bare. Apollonius gathers an army to crush Israel and is defeated; Judas takes his sword and fights with it the rest of his days. Then...
No. 3527 1 Maccabees 15:22-31
Simon the high priest has won recognition and goodwill from many nations, with letters written on his behalf. But then King Antiochus, once an ally, turns against him and makes harsh demands: hand over the...
No. 3540 1 Maccabees 12:39-45
Tryphon, seeking power for himself, wants to destroy Jonathan but fears his army. So he resorts to deceit. He receives Jonathan warmly, showers him with honors and gifts, and then persuades him with flattery...
No. 3622 1 Maccabees 13:49-53
Simon finally captures the citadel in Jerusalem, the enemy stronghold that had long defiled the holy city, and he cleanses it of its pollutions. And notice how he enters: with praise and palm branches, with...
No. 3627 1 Maccabees 15:15-21
This passage records Rome's formal recognition of friendship and alliance with the Jews under Simon, with letters sent to many kings and nations urging them not to harm the Jewish people or make war on them....
No. 3646 1 Maccabees 3:54-60
As Judas prepares his outnumbered army for battle, two things stand out. First, following the law of Moses, he sends home those who were fearful, or newly married, or had just built a house or planted a...
No. 3744 1 Maccabees 2:61-70
The dying Mattathias gathers his sons and gives them a charge rooted in the long memory of God's faithfulness: consider the generations, he says, and see that none who trust in God will lack strength. He urges...
No. 3792 1 Maccabees 9:54-64
The wicked high priest Alcimus orders the wall of the inner court of the sanctuary torn down, undoing the work of the prophets, but as the demolition begins he is suddenly struck down, paralyzed and unable to...
No. 3827 1 Maccabees 15:10-14
The usurper Tryphon, who had seized power by treachery and murder, now finds himself cornered. When the rightful heir Antiochus advances, Tryphon's forces desert him and rally to the other side; troubles come...
No. 3957 1 Maccabees 11:54-59
This passage records a swirl of political intrigue, a usurper and a boy-king, armies changing sides, cities captured, and in the midst of it the Jewish leader Jonathan is showered with honors: confirmed as...
No. 4039 1 Maccabees 4:34-41
After Judas Maccabaeus defeats the enemy army, his first thought is not celebration of the victory but the restoration of the desecrated temple. Behold, our enemies are crushed, he says; let us go up to...
No. 4120 1 Maccabees 5:1-8
No sooner had the temple been cleansed and rededicated, a great spiritual victory for God's people, than the surrounding nations, enraged by it, banded together to destroy them. The very success of restoring...
No. 4156 1 Maccabees 8:1-16
Judas Maccabaeus, looking for allies, hears reports of the fame of the Romans, of their vast conquests, their subjugation of kings and nations, their military success across the known world, and their orderly...
No. 4190 1 Maccabees 12:24-32
Hearing that a larger enemy army was coming against him, Jonathan Maccabaeus did not sit passively. He marched out to meet them, sent spies to learn their plans, and when he discovered they meant to attack by...
No. 4219 1 Maccabees 6:14-27
This passage records the death of Antiochus, the king who had savagely persecuted God's people, defiled the temple, and tried to stamp out their faith. In the end, far from his kingdom, he dies and hands his...
No. 4245 1 Maccabees 2:49-60
As Mattathias comes to the end of his life in a time of fierce persecution, he gathers his sons and strengthens them for the hard days ahead. And the way he does it is by remembering: he calls to mind the...
No. 4254 1 Maccabees 4:42-51
After the temple had been defiled by the enemies of God's people, Judas and his followers set about cleansing and restoring it. They chose faithful priests, carried out the defiled stones, tore down the...