Jonathan

Bacchides picked out the ungodly men and made them rulers of the country. They asked around and searched for Judas’s friends and brought them to Bacchides. He took revenge on them and treated them shamefully. Israel suffered terribly. It had not suffered like this since the time prophets stopped appearing to them.

Then all of Judas’s friends gathered together and said to Jonathan, “Now that your brother Judas is dead, we have no one like him to go out against our enemies and against Bacchides, and against those of our own nation who hate us. So today we have chosen you to be our chief and our leader in his place, and to fight our battles.”

So Jonathan took command at that time and stepped up in his brother Judas’s place.

Bacchides learned of this on the Sabbath day, and he came over the Jordan with his whole army.

Jonathan sent his brother John, a leader of the people, to beg his friends the Nabathaeans to look after the people’s baggage, because there was a great deal of it. But the family of Jambri came out of Medaba, seized John and everything he had, and went off with it.

Later, word came to Jonathan and his brother Simon that the family of Jambri were holding a great wedding. They were bringing the bride from Nadabath with a large escort. She was the daughter of one of the great nobles of Canaan.

Remembering their brother John, they went up and hid in the shelter of the mountain. They looked up and saw a great procession with a great deal of baggage. The bridegroom came out with his friends and his relatives to meet the procession, with tambourines, musicians and many weapons.

Then they burst out of their hiding place, attacked the wedding party and killed them. Many fell, fatally wounded, and the rest fled into the mountain. The Jews took all their goods as plunder. So the wedding was turned into mourning, and the sound of their musicians into cries of grief.

In this way they avenged their brother’s blood in full, and then they went back to the marshes of the Jordan.

Jonathan said to the men with him, “Let’s stand up now and fight for our lives, because today is not like yesterday and the day before. Look, we have the battle ahead of us and behind us, and the Jordan’s water on both sides, with marsh and thicket. There is nowhere to escape. So now cry out to heaven to rescue you from your enemies.”

Then the fighting started. Jonathan reached out his hand to strike Bacchides, and he turned and drew back from him.

Jonathan and his men leapt into the Jordan and swam over to the far bank. The enemy didn’t cross the river after them.

About a thousand of Bacchides’ men were killed that day.

He put troops in them to harass Israel. He fortified the city of Bethsura, Gazara and the citadel, and put soldiers and stores of food in them.

He took the sons of the country’s chief men as hostages and kept them under guard in the citadel at Jerusalem.

In the one hundred fifty-third year, in the second month, Alcimus gave orders to pull down the wall of the inner court of the sanctuary. He also pulled down the works of the prophets.

Alcimus had begun to pull it down when he was struck, and his work was stopped. His mouth was shut, he was paralyzed, and he could no longer speak at all, or give orders about his household. At that time he died in great torment.

When Bacchides saw that Alcimus was dead, he went back to the king. Then for two years the land of Judah was at peace.

They went and talked it over with him. Bacchides set out and came with a great army, and he sent letters in secret to all his allies in Judea, ordering them to seize Jonathan and those with him. But they couldn’t, because their plan was found out.

Jonathan’s men seized about fifty of the men of the country who were behind this wickedness, and he killed them.

Then Jonathan and Simon and their men went away to Bethbasi, in the wilderness. He rebuilt what had been torn down there, and they made it strong.

Bacchides found out about it. He gathered his whole army and sent orders to those in Judea. Then he came and camped outside Bethbasi. He attacked it for many days and built siege machines.

Jonathan left his brother Simon in the city and went out into the country with a few men. He attacked Odomera and his relatives, and the family of Phasiron in their tents.

They began to strike them and to go up with their forces. Then Simon and his men came out of the city and set the siege machines on fire. They fought against Bacchides and beat him. They hurt him badly. His plan and his campaign had been for nothing.

They were very angry with the lawless men who had advised him to come into the country, and they killed many of them. Then Bacchides made up his mind to leave for his own land.

When Jonathan learned of this, he sent messengers to Bacchides to make peace and to have the captives given back to them.

Bacchides agreed and did as Jonathan said. He swore to Jonathan that he would never try to harm him for the rest of his life. He gave back the captives he had taken earlier from the land of Judah, and he turned and went home to his own land. He never came within their borders again.

So there was no more war in Israel. Jonathan lived at Michmash. He began to judge the people, and he destroyed the ungodly in Israel.

When King Demetrius heard about it, he gathered a huge army and went out to fight him.

Demetrius sent Jonathan a letter with words of peace, to honor him. “Let’s be the first to make peace with them,” he said, “before Jonathan makes peace with Alexander against us, because he will remember all the harm we have done to him, and to his family and his nation.”

So Demetrius gave Jonathan authority to gather an army and to supply weapons, and to be his ally. He also gave orders for the hostages in the citadel to be handed over to Jonathan.

Jonathan came to Jerusalem and read the letter aloud for all the people to hear, and for those in the citadel. They were very afraid when they heard that the king had given him authority to gather an army. The men in the citadel handed the hostages over to Jonathan, and he gave them back to their parents.

Jonathan lived in Jerusalem and began building and repairing the city. He told the workmen to build the walls and to surround Mount Zion with square stones for defense, and they did.

The foreigners in the strongholds Bacchides had built ran away. Every one of them left his place and went home to his own land. The only ones left were at Bethsura. They were men who had turned away from the law and the commandments, and they stayed because it was a safe place for them.

King Alexander heard about all the promises Demetrius had sent Jonathan. He was told of the battles and brave deeds of Jonathan and his family, and the troubles they had been through. “Could we find another man like him?” he said. “Now we will make him our friend and ally.”

So he wrote Jonathan a letter and sent it to him: “King Alexander to his brother Jonathan, greetings. We have heard that you are a mighty and brave man, worthy to be our friend. So today we have appointed you high priest of your nation. You will be known as the king’s friend. We want you on our side, and we want to stay friends with you.” With it he sent a purple robe and a gold crown.

In the seventh month of the one hundred sixtieth year, at the Feast of Tabernacles, Jonathan put on the holy garments. He gathered an army and supplied it with plenty of weapons.

So he sent them this message: “King Demetrius to the nation of the Jews, greetings.” He wrote that they had kept their agreements with him, stayed his friends and not joined his enemies. He had heard this, he said, and he was glad. He asked them to stay loyal to him, and he would reward them for the way they had treated him. He would grant them many freedoms and give them gifts.

Then came the promises. He declared all the Jews free from the tribute, the salt tax and the crown taxes. From that day on and for all time, he would stop taking a third of their grain and half the fruit of their trees, which had been his share. That went for the land of Judah and for the three districts of Samaria and Galilee that had been added to it. Jerusalem was to be holy and free, with its lands, its tithes and its taxes.

He was giving up his authority over the citadel in Jerusalem, he said, and handing it to the high priest, who could choose the men to hold it. He was setting free every Jew who had been carried off captive from the land of Judah into any part of his kingdom, and they would not have to pay anything. All his officials were to cancel the taxes on their livestock.

All the feasts, the Sabbaths, the new moons and the appointed days, with the three days before a feast and the three days after it, were to be days of freedom and release for all the Jews in his kingdom. No one would have the right to demand anything from any of them, or to trouble them about any matter.

About thirty thousand Jewish men were to join the king’s forces and be paid the same as all his soldiers. Some would be stationed in the king’s great strongholds, and some put in charge of the kingdom’s affairs, in positions of trust. Their officers and rulers would be their own people, and they would keep their own laws, as the king had commanded in the land of Judah.

The three districts added to Judea from Samaria were to be joined to Judea and counted as being under one ruler. They would obey no authority except the high priest’s.

He had given Ptolemais and its land as a gift to the sanctuary at Jerusalem, to pay its expenses. Every year he would give fifteen thousand shekels of silver, about 330 pounds, out of the king’s income from the proper places. All the extra money that the king’s officials had not paid, as they had in the first years, would go from now on to the work of the temple. He also gave up the five thousand shekels of silver taken every year out of the sanctuary’s income, because that money belonged to the priests who served there.

Anyone who fled to the temple in Jerusalem, or anywhere within its borders, whether he owed the king money or anything else, was to go free, with everything he had in the kingdom.

The king’s income would pay for building and renewing the sanctuary. It would also pay for building Jerusalem’s walls and fortifying the city all around, and for building the walls in Judea.

But when Jonathan and the people heard these words, they didn’t believe them or accept them. They remembered the great harm Demetrius had done in Israel, and how severely he had made them suffer.

They were well pleased with Alexander, since he was the first one to speak words of peace to them, and they were always his allies.

King Alexander gathered a great army and camped near Demetrius. The two kings met in battle, and Alexander’s army fled. Demetrius went after him and got the better of them. He pressed the battle very hard until the sun went down, and that day Demetrius was killed.

King Ptolemy answered, “What a happy day it was when you came back to the land of your ancestors and sat on the throne of their kingdom! I will do what you have written. But come and meet me at Ptolemais, so we can see each other, and I will join with you, just as you have said.”

So Ptolemy left Egypt, bringing his daughter Cleopatra, and in the one hundred sixty-second year they arrived at Ptolemais. King Alexander went to meet him, and Ptolemy gave Cleopatra to him. Her wedding was held at Ptolemais with great splendor, the way kings do.

King Alexander wrote to Jonathan, asking him to come and meet him. Jonathan went to Ptolemais in grand style and met the two kings. He gave them and their friends silver and gold and many gifts, and he won their favor.

Some grumblers from Israel, men who broke the law, gathered against Jonathan to complain about him. But the king paid no attention to them.

At the king’s command, Jonathan’s clothes were taken off and he was dressed in purple. The king had Jonathan sit beside him and said to his nobles, “Go out with him into the heart of the city and announce that no one may bring any complaint against him about anything, and no one may trouble him for any reason.”

When the men who had complained against Jonathan saw him honored as the announcement said, and saw him dressed in purple, they all ran away.

The king honored him. He counted him among his chief friends and made him a commander and governor of a province. Then Jonathan went home to Jerusalem in peace and gladness.

This Demetrius appointed Apollonius, who was in charge of Coelesyria. Apollonius gathered a great army and camped outside Jamnia to attack it, and he sent a message to Jonathan the high priest.

“You are the only one who rises up against us,” he said, “but because of you I am laughed at and disgraced. Why do you set yourself up against us in the mountains? Now if you trust your army, come down to us into the plain, and let’s match our strength against each other there, because the power of the cities is with me. Ask around and find out who I am, and who the others are who help us. They say, ‘You can’t stand your ground against us, because your ancestors have been chased off twice in their own land.’ And now you won’t be able to stand against horsemen and an army like this one in the plain, where there is no stone or pebble, and nowhere to run.”

When Jonathan heard what Apollonius said, it stirred him. He chose ten thousand men and left Jerusalem, and his brother Simon came to meet him and help him.

He camped outside Joppa. The people of the city shut him out, because Apollonius had troops stationed in Joppa. So they fought against it. The people of the city were afraid and opened the gates to him, and Jonathan took control of Joppa.

Apollonius heard about it. He gathered three thousand horsemen and a great army and went to Azotus as if he were only traveling. At the same time he moved on into the plain, because he had a great many horsemen and trusted them. The pursuit went on to Azotus, and the armies met in battle.

Apollonius had secretly left a thousand horsemen behind them. Jonathan learned that there was an ambush behind him. The enemy surrounded his army. From morning until evening they shot arrows at his men. But the men held their ground, as Jonathan had commanded them, and the enemy’s horses grew tired.

Then Simon brought his army forward and attacked the ranks of foot soldiers, because the horsemen were worn out. He beat them, and they fled. The horsemen scattered over the plain. They fled to Azotus and went into Beth-dagon, the temple of their idol, to save themselves.

Jonathan burned Azotus and the towns around it and took their plunder. He set fire to the temple of Dagon with those who had fled into it. About eight thousand men died, killed by the sword or burned.

From there Jonathan went and camped outside Ascalon. The people of the city came out to meet him with great ceremony. Then Jonathan and those on his side went back to Jerusalem with a great deal of plunder.

When King Alexander heard about all this, he honored Jonathan even more. He sent him a gold buckle, the kind usually given to the king’s relatives, and he gave him Ekron and all its land to be his own.