7. that they had pulled down the abomination which he had built upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded with high walls both the sanctuary, as it had been before, and his city of Beth-zur.
8. When the king heard this news, he was astonished and very much shaken. Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed.
9. There he remained many days, assailed by waves of grief, for he thought he was going to die.
10. So he called in all his Friends and said to them: “Sleep has departed from my eyes, and my heart sinks from anxiety.
11. I said to myself: ‘Into what tribulation have I come, and in what floods of sorrow am I now! Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule.’
12. But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of silver and gold that were in it, and for no cause gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed.
13. I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.”
14. Then he summoned Philip, one of his Friends, and put him in charge of his whole kingdom.
15. He gave him his diadem, his robe, and his signet ring, so that he might guide the king’s son Antiochus and bring him up to be king.
16. So King Antiochus died there in the one hundred and forty-ninth year.
17. When Lysias learned that the king was dead, he set up the king’s son Antiochus, whom he had reared as a child, to be king in his place; and he gave him the title Eupator.
18. Those in the citadel were hemming Israel in around the sanctuary, continually trying to harm them and to strengthen the Gentiles.
19. And so Judas planned to destroy them, and assembled the people to besiege them.
20. So in the one hundred and fiftieth year they assembled and besieged the citadel, for which purpose he constructed platforms and siege engines.
21. But some of the besieged escaped, and some renegade Israelites joined them.
22. They went to the king and said: “How long will you fail to do justice and to avenge our kindred?
23. We agreed to serve your father and to follow his orders and obey his edicts.
24. And for this our own people have become our enemies; they have put to death as many of us as they could find and have seized our inheritances.