Old Testament · 15 chapters

2 Maccabees

• No. 147 2 Maccabees 15:28-39

  Second Maccabees is a shorter, more emotional retelling of part of the same revolt First Maccabees covers. This passage is its final scene and then something unusual: the author talking about his own book.

• No. 171 2 Maccabees 6:12-17

  Second Maccabees pauses its narrative here to speak directly to the reader, and it is one of the few places in scripture where an author explains how he wants his own book taken.

• No. 183 2 Maccabees 12:36-45

  Judas Maccabeus has won a battle, and this passage is what happens when the bodies are collected. Under the tunics of every one of the dead, they find amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law...

• No. 221 2 Maccabees 7:30-42

  Second Maccabees 7 tells one of the hardest stories in Scripture. A mother and her seven sons have been arrested under Antiochus the Fourth and tortured to death one at a time, for refusing to eat pork and...

• No. 269 2 Maccabees 5:1-10

  This passage falls in the middle of the Maccabean crisis, and it pairs a strange sign in the sky with a squalid story on the ground. For almost forty days, the text says, phantom horsemen in gold armor...

• No. 282 2 Maccabees 8:30-36

  This passage comes right after a major victory for Judas Maccabeus and his fighters, who have routed a much larger force. What they do with the win is the part worth watching. When they divide up the plunder...

• No. 324 2 Maccabees 3:22-30

  An imperial official named Heliodorus has come to Jerusalem to do something the empire had every legal right to do: seize the money stored in the temple treasury. That treasury held deposits entrusted to God's...

• No. 355 2 Maccabees 6:18-23

  Eleazar was one of the most respected scribes in Israel, a man of ninety with a lifetime of integrity behind him, and under the persecution of Antiochus he was dragged forward and ordered to eat pork in...

• No. 391 2 Maccabees 7:1-6

  This is the beginning of one of the most harrowing stories in Scripture, and there is no way to read it without flinching, nor should there be. Under the persecution of Antiochus, a mother and her seven sons...

• No. 452 2 Maccabees 13:1-8

  This grim little passage tells the end of Menelaus, one of the great villains of the Maccabean story. Menelaus had bought his way into the high priesthood, betrayed his own people, and profaned the temple, all...

• No. 528 2 Maccabees 15:1-5

  The Greek general Nicanor is hunting the Jewish resistance under Judas Maccabeus, and he decides to attack them on the Sabbath, calculating that they will not defend themselves on their holy day and can be...

• No. 666 2 Maccabees 1:1-6

  Second Maccabees is a different kind of book from the first. Where the first tells the revolt as a running narrative, the second opens with letters, and this is the first of them: a note from the Jews of...

• No. 695 2 Maccabees 12:24-28

  Second Maccabees follows Judas on a run of campaigns to rescue Jews scattered in hostile towns, and it tells them with an unflinching taste for the body count. This passage opens with a captured enemy...

• No. 698 2 Maccabees 14:15-25

  Nicanor is sent by the Seleucid king to break Judas, and the Jews, hearing he is coming, sprinkle dust on their heads and pray. But the battle they brace for does not come. Nicanor, hearing how bravely Judas's...

• No. 952 2 Maccabees 3:31-40

  Heliodorus, an agent of the Seleucid king, had come to Jerusalem to plunder the temple treasury. In the previous verses he was struck down by a heavenly apparition, a fearsome horseman and two radiant young...

• No. 973 2 Maccabees 10:29-38

  This is a battle scene from the Maccabean wars. As Judas Maccabeus fights, the text says five splendid horsemen appear from heaven, shielding him and leading the Jews, striking the enemy with confusion. The...

• No. 983 2 Maccabees 10:14-23

  Judas Maccabeus is fighting the Idumeans and the mercenaries under Gorgias, who keep the war going against the Jews. After earnest prayer, asking God to fight on their side, Judas storms the strongholds and...

• No. 1114 2 Maccabees 3:14-21

  Heliodorus, the king's agent, has come to Jerusalem to seize the temple treasury, and on the appointed day he moves to carry it out. The whole city is thrown into distress. The priests prostrate themselves...

• No. 1166 2 Maccabees 7:13-17

  This is the account of seven brothers tortured to death, one by one, for refusing to break God's law, while their mother watches. Here the fourth brother, near death, speaks his defiance: it is good to die at...

• No. 1207 2 Maccabees 11:16-21

  This is a diplomatic letter preserved in Second Maccabees. Lysias, a Seleucid official, writes to the Jewish people after negotiations, granting some of their requests and promising, if they keep their...

• No. 1289 2 Maccabees 10:1-8

  Judas Maccabeus and his men, led by the Lord, recover the temple and the city that had been defiled by the foreign occupiers. They tear down the pagan altars the enemy had built, cleanse the sanctuary, and...

• No. 1361 2 Maccabees 14:37-46

  Razis was an elder of Jerusalem, a man of good reputation, so loved by his people that he was called Father of the Jews; in earlier days he had risked his body and life for his faith when it was dangerous to...

• No. 1363 2 Maccabees 3:9-13

  Heliodorus, an officer of the Seleucid king, has come to Jerusalem to seize the money held in the temple treasury, acting on a report that great wealth lay there for the taking. The high priest explains the...

• No. 1438 2 Maccabees 4:18-22

  The story of Jason gives a picture of how far the priesthood had fallen. Jason had bought the high priesthood and set about turning Jerusalem toward Greek ways. Here, when athletic games are held at Tyre with...

• No. 1488 2 Maccabees 13:9-17

  The king Antiochus comes against the Jews in fury, meaning to inflict terrible suffering. Judas Maccabeus, hearing of it, does not first muster his forces; he commands the people to call on the Lord day and...

• No. 1583 2 Maccabees 4:23-29

  The corruption of the high priesthood deepens. Jason had bought the sacred office with a bribe; now Menelaus, sent to deliver money to the king, uses the opportunity to outbid Jason by three hundred talents of...

• No. 1818 2 Maccabees 14:1-5

  As Demetrius takes the throne, a man named Alcimus, who had once been high priest but had willfully defiled himself, sees an opening for himself. Knowing he has no honest way back to the altar he forfeited, he...

• No. 1829 2 Maccabees 12:1-9

  The men of Joppa commit a treacherous crime. With no apparent ill will, they invite the Jews living among them, along with their wives and children, to a friendly outing on boats they have provided. The Jews,...

• No. 1870 2 Maccabees 15:12-16

  Before a decisive battle, Judas encourages his men by telling them a dream God had given him. In it, he saw Onias, the former high priest, a good and honorable man, standing with outstretched hands, praying...

• No. 2003 2 Maccabees 7:24-29

  As Antiochus tortures a Jewish family for refusing to abandon God's law, only the youngest son remains. The king, unable to move him, urges the boy's mother to persuade her son to save himself. But she,...

• No. 2059 2 Maccabees 14:26-30

  The Syrian general Nicanor had come to a peaceable understanding with Judas Maccabeus, a goodwill between them. But Alcimus, resenting this friendship, goes to King Demetrius and slanders Nicanor, falsely...

• No. 2332 2 Maccabees 10:24-28

  As a great enemy army advances to take Judea by force, Judas Maccabeus and his men do not first take up their weapons. They sprinkle dirt on their heads, put on sackcloth, and fall down before the altar,...

• No. 2370 2 Maccabees 12:17-23

  Second Maccabees recounts one of Judas Maccabeus's campaigns against Timotheus, whose forces vastly outnumber his own. When the fighting begins, terror falls on the enemy, and the writer names the cause: the...

• No. 2401 2 Maccabees 9:19-29

  Second Maccabees prints a letter from Antiochus, the king who had savaged the Jews, now dying of a wretched illness. The tone is startling: warm greetings, wishes for their welfare, talk of his hope in heaven,...

• No. 2489 2 Maccabees 5:21-27

  The chapter is full of arrogance and treachery. Antiochus, having looted the temple, is so lifted up he imagines he could sail on land and walk on the sea. His officer Apollonius comes to Jerusalem pretending...

• No. 2505 2 Maccabees 6:24-31

  Eleazar, a man of ninety, is being pressured to eat forbidden food, and even offered the chance to only pretend, to fake compliance and save his life. He refuses, and his reason is striking: at my age, such...

• No. 2508 2 Maccabees 7:18-23

  This is a hard and luminous scene in the books of Maccabees: a mother watching all seven of her sons put to death in a single day for refusing to abandon God's law. Rather than collapse, she encourages each...

• No. 2578 2 Maccabees 11:34-38

  Tucked into the second book of Maccabees is a diplomatic letter from Roman envoys to the Jews, consenting to certain terms and asking them to send a representative to make their wishes known. It is the...

• No. 2614 2 Maccabees 1:30-36

  Second Maccabees preserves a curious old story. When the priests were carried into exile, they hid the sacred fire of the altar in a dry pit, and over the years it became a thick liquid. Generations later,...

• No. 2634 2 Maccabees 4:30-38

  The godly high priest Onias had exposed the corruption of Menelaus, who was stealing the temple's gold vessels. In revenge, Menelaus arranges his murder. The official Andronicus lures Onias out of the...

• No. 2745 2 Maccabees 5:11-20

  This is a brutal chapter to read. Antiochus, wrongly convinced Judea has revolted, storms Jerusalem, kills tens of thousands over three days, and forces his way into the temple, led by the traitor Menelaus,...

• No. 2778 2 Maccabees 6:7-11

  This is a harrowing account of persecution, and it should be read slowly and with respect. Under Antiochus, Jews are dragged monthly to eat pagan sacrifices and forced to march in the procession of Dionysus. A...

• No. 2785 2 Maccabees 2:19-32

  Here the writer steps out from behind the story to explain what he is doing. He is condensing the five-volume history of Jason of Cyrene, all the deeds of Judas Maccabeus and the cleansing of the temple, into...

• No. 2857 2 Maccabees 8:1-7

  After the persecution, Judas Maccabeus moves secretly through the villages and gathers about six thousand who had stayed faithful. And before they lift a weapon, they pray. They call on the Lord to look on the...

• No. 2861 2 Maccabees 9:1-12

  Antiochus, the proud persecutor who had vowed to make Jerusalem a graveyard of Jews, is struck down. Racing north in fury to carry out his threat, he is seized by an incurable agony in his body, thrown from...

• No. 2866 2 Maccabees 3:1-8

  For years Jerusalem enjoyed unbroken peace under the godly high priest Onias, and the laws were kept so well that even foreign kings honored the temple and paid for its sacrifices. Then trouble arrives, and it...

• No. 2950 2 Maccabees 4:7-17

  Under Antiochus, a man named Jason buys the high priesthood with heavy bribes and then aggressively pushes Greek customs on his own people. He builds a gymnasium under the very citadel, enrolls the people of...

• No. 3011 2 Maccabees 4:1-6

  The scheming Simon, who had already betrayed the temple treasury, now slanders the godly high priest Onias, accusing him of stirring up the very trouble Simon himself had caused, and even having murders...

• No. 3054 2 Maccabees 8:21-29

  Judas Maccabeus encourages his men to be ready to die for the law and their country, gives them the watchword "The help of God," and defeats Nicanor. But look at what the victors do afterward. Because it is...

• No. 3086 2 Maccabees 11:27-33

  After a season of fierce persecution, a royal letter arrives granting the Jews permission to follow their own laws and eat their own foods as before, promising that no one will be molested for what was done in...

• No. 3250 2 Maccabees 7:7-12

  This is a scene of terrible torture: seven brothers put to death, one after another, for refusing to break God's law. And through the horror shines their hope. The second, at his last breath, says the King of...

• No. 3270 2 Maccabees 1:18-23

  A letter about the temple's rededication recalls a strange and lovely story. Before the exile, godly priests hid the sacred altar fire in the hollow of a dry well, keeping its place secret. Generations later,...

• No. 3358 2 Maccabees 2:13-18

  This passage records a quiet, precious act: the gathering and preserving of the sacred writings. Nehemiah had founded a library, collecting the books of the kings and prophets and the writings of David; and...

• No. 3367 2 Maccabees 9:13-18

  The arrogant king Antiochus, who had plundered the temple and slaughtered the faithful, now lies dying in agony, and suddenly he is full of promises: he will free the holy city, adorn the sanctuary he had...

• No. 3432 2 Maccabees 4:39-50

  This is a bleak account of justice perverted by money. Lysimachus plunders the temple with the corrupt high priest Menelaus's connivance; the people rise up in rage, and Lysimachus is killed. But when the case...

• No. 3459 2 Maccabees 14:31-36

  The enemy commander Nicanor, thwarted in his pursuit of Judas, comes to the temple and issues a blasphemous threat: hand over Judas, or I will level this house of God to the ground and build here a temple to a...

• No. 3471 2 Maccabees 1:7-17

  This festival letter recalls how God delivered his people from great danger, and it ends with a grim account of how the proud Antiochus met his end, killed in a pagan temple he had entered by deceit, intending...

• No. 3517 2 Maccabees 2:1-12

  This tradition tells how Jeremiah, at the time of the exile, hid the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar of incense in a cave and sealed the entrance, and declared that the place would remain unknown until God...

• No. 3641 2 Maccabees 6:1-6

  This is a dark hour of persecution. Antiochus sends to force the Jews to abandon the laws of their fathers, defiling the temple and rededicating it to a pagan god, filling the holy place with debauchery,...

• No. 3892 2 Maccabees 11:6-15

  Outnumbered and facing a siege, Judas Maccabaeus and his people do not first sharpen their swords but fall to prayer, begging the Lord with tears to send a good angel to save Israel. Then, as they advance, a...

• No. 3976 2 Maccabees 15:17-27

  Facing a fearsome enemy, war elephants and a well-armed host, Judas Maccabaeus prepares his outnumbered men, but not by trusting in weapons. He knows, the text says, that success comes not by arms but as the...

• No. 3981 2 Maccabees 12:10-16

  As Judas Maccabaeus faces a fortified city whose defenders mock and blaspheme, trusting in their strong walls, he does not first reckon up his siege engines. Instead he and his men call upon the great...

• No. 4032 2 Maccabees 10:9-13

  This passage records a sad episode. Ptolemy Macron, an official who had set an example of dealing justly with the Jews, trying to treat them fairly and peaceably after the wrongs done to them, found himself...

• No. 4069 2 Maccabees 11:22-26

  This passage records a royal letter in which King Antiochus, the very dynasty that had persecuted the Jews and tried to force them to abandon their law, now grants them the right to live according to their...

• No. 4082 2 Maccabees 8:8-20

  Facing a large invading army sent to destroy them and enslave their people, Judas Maccabaeus gathers his outnumbered men and encourages them, not by boasting of their own strength, but by turning their eyes to...

• No. 4089 2 Maccabees 13:18-26

  This passage records the frustration of a great king. Antiochus, with his army, attacks the Jewish strongholds, but he is repeatedly turned back, defeated, and unable to prevail against the people he had come...

• No. 4101 2 Maccabees 15:6-11

  As the boastful enemy commander Nicanor prepares to crush Judas Maccabaeus and his men, Judas prepares his people in a striking way. He does not merely check their weapons; he encourages them, reminding them...

• No. 4115 2 Maccabees 14:6-14

  This passage records the treachery of Alcimus, a man who wanted the high priesthood for himself. To get it, he goes to the king and slanders Judas Maccabaeus and the faithful Jews, portraying them as...

• No. 4134 2 Maccabees 12:29-35

  As Judas Maccabaeus and his men march through the region, they come to a city, Scythopolis, whose people had, in earlier days of misfortune, treated the Jews living there with kindness and goodwill. And rather...

• No. 4178 2 Maccabees 1:24-29

  This passage records a prayer, and before it asks for anything, it dwells on who God is. O Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, it begins, awesome and strong and just and merciful, you alone are King and...

• No. 4217 2 Maccabees 11:1-5

  Lysias, guardian of the young king, comes against the Jews with an overwhelming force: eighty thousand foot soldiers, thousands of cavalry, and eighty war elephants. His confidence rests entirely on these...