any days, and
performed the usual solemn rites of a funeral to him. And this was the
end that Judas came to. He had been a man of valor and a great warrior,
and mindful of the commands of their father Matrathins; and had
undergone all difficulties, both in doing and suffering, for the liberty
of his countrymen. And when his character was so excellent [while he
was alive], he left behind him a glorious reputation and memorial, by
gaining freedom for his nation, and delivering them from slavery under
the Macedonians. And when he had retained the high priesthood three
years, he died.

BOOK XIII. Containing The Interval Of Eighty-Two Years.

From The Death Of Judas Maccabeus To The Death Of Queen Alexandra.

CHAPTER 1. How Jonathan Took The Government After His Brother Judas; And
How He, Together With His Brother Simon, Waged War Against Bacchides.

1. By what means the nation of the Jews recovered their freedom
when they had been brought into slavery by the Macedonians, and what
struggles, and how great battles, Judas, the general of their army,
ran through, till he was slain as he was fighting for them, hath been
related in the foregoing book; but after he was dead, all the wicked,
and those that transgressed the laws of their forefathers, sprang up
again in Judea, and grew upon them, and distressed them on every side.
A famine also assisted their wickedness, and afflicted the country, till
not a few, who by reason of their want of necessaries, and because they
were not able to bear up against the miseries that both the famine and
their enemies brought upon them, deserted their country, and went to
the Macedonians. And now Bacchides gathered those Jews together who had
apostatized from the accustomed way of living of their forefathers,
and chose to live like their neighbors, and committed the care of the
country to them, who also caught the friends of Judas, and those of his
party, and delivered them up to Bacchides, who when he had, in the first
place, tortured and tormented them at his pleasure, he, by that means,
at length killed them. And when this calamity of the Jews was become so
great, as they had never had experience of the like since their return
out of Babylon, those that remained of the companions of Judas, seeing
that the nation was ready to be destroyed after a miserable manner,
came to his brother Jonathan, and desired him that he would imitate
his brother, and that care which he took of his coun