6. Lysias, who had gone first with a strong force, had turned and run from the Jews. The Jews then grew stronger when they took weapons, supplies, and abundant spoils from the armies they defeated.
7. They had taken down the disgusting thing that he had set up on the altar in Jerusalem. Furthermore, they had surrounded the sanctuary and also Lysias’ town Beth-zur with high walls like before.
8. When the king heard this news, he was stunned and badly shaken. He took to his bed, sick from grief. Things hadn’t turned out for him as he had planned.
9. He lay there for many days because he was deeply depressed. He realized that he was dying.
10. He called his closest political advisors and said to them, "Sleep has left my eyes. I’m depressed from worrying.
11. I say to myself, What distress I’ve come to! What a great flood I’ve now been plunged into! Once I was kind and was loved in my power.
12. But now I recall the wrongs I did in Jerusalem. I seized all its silver and gold equipment. I ordered the destruction of the inhabitants of Judah without good reason.
13. I know it’s because of all this that these misfortunes have come on me. I’m here, dying of bitter disappointment, in a foreign land."
14. Then he called for one of his advisors named Philip and made him ruler over all of his kingdom.
15. He gave him the crown, his robe, and the seal so that he might guide his son Antiochus and prepare him to be king.
16. Then King Antiochus died there in the year 149.
17. When Lysias found out that the king had died, he arranged for the king’s son Antiochus, whom he had brought up from childhood, to rule. Lysias named him Eupator.
18. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the elevated fortress kept surrounding the Israelites in the sanctuary. They were trying every way they could to harm them and strengthen the Gentiles.
19. Judas decided to destroy them. He brought all the people together to besiege them.