nds before the
rest; and gave orders for the army to shout aloud, and so he attacked
the enemy. He also exposed to sight their golden and brazen shields, so
that a glorious splendor was sent from them; and when they shouted the
mountains echoed again. When Judas saw this, he was not terrified, but
received the enemy with great courage, and slew about six hundred of the
first ranks. But when his brother Eleazar, whom they called Auran, saw
the tallest of all the elephants armed with royal breastplates,
and supposed that the king was upon him, he attacked him with great
quickness and bravery. He also slew many of those that were about the
elephant, and scattered the rest, and then went under the belly of
the elephant, and smote him, and slew him; so the elephant fell upon
Eleazar, and by his weight crushed him to death. And thus did this man
come to his end, when he had first courageously destroyed many of his
enemies.

5. But Judas, seeing the strength of the enemy, retired to Jerusalem,
and prepared to endure a siege. As for Antiochus, he sent part of his
army to Bethsura, to besiege it, and with the rest of his army he came
against Jerusalem; but the inhabitants of Bethsura were terrified at his
strength; and seeing that their provisions grew scarce, they delivered
themselves up on the security of oaths that they should suffer no hard
treatment from the king. And when Antiochus had thus taken the city,
he did them no other harm than sending them out naked. He also placed a
garrison of his own in the city. But as for the temple of Jerusalem, he
lay at its siege a long time, while they within bravely defended it; for
what engines soever the king set against them, they set other engines
again to oppose them. But then their provisions failed them; what
fruits of the ground they had laid up were spent and the land being not
ploughed that year, continued unsowed, because it was the seventh year,
on which, by our laws, we are obliged to let it lay uncultivated. And
withal, so many of the besieged ran away for want of necessaries, that
but a few only were left in the temple.

6. And these happened to be the circumstances of such as were besieged
in the temple. But then, because Lysias, the general of the army, and
Antiochus the king, were informed that Philip was coming upon them out
of Persia, and was endeavoring to get the management of public affairs
to himself, they came into these sentiments, to leave the siege, and to