1. THE brethren, the Jews that are in Jerusalem and they that are in the country of Judaea, send greeting to the brethren, the Jews that are throughout Egypt, and wish them good peace:
2. and may God do good to you, and remember his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, his faithful servants;
3. and give you all a heart to worship him and do his pleasure with a great heart and a willing soul;
4. and open your heart in his law and in his statutes, and make peace,
5. and hearken to your supplications, and be reconciled with you, and not forsake you in an evil time.
6. And now we here are praying for you.
7. In the reign of Demetrius, in the hundred threescore and ninth year, we the Jews have already written to you in the tribulation and in the extremity that has come upon us in these years, from the time that Jason and his company revolted from the holy land and the kingdom,
8. and set the gate on fire, and shed innocent blood: and we implored the Lord, and were heard; and we offered sacrifice and meal offering, and we lighted the lamps, and we set forth the show bread.
9. And now see that you⌃ keep the days of the feast of tabernacles of the month Chislev.
10. Written in the hundred fourscore and eighth year. THEY that are in Jerusalem and they that are in Judaea and the senate and Judas, to Aristobulus, king Ptolemy’s teacher, who is also of the stock of the anointed priests, and to the Jews that are in Egypt, send greeting and health.
11. Having been saved by God out of great perils, as men arrayed against a king, we thank him greatly.
12. For himself cast forth into Persia them that arrayed themselves against us in the holy city.
13. For when the prince was come there, and the army with him that seemed irresistible, they were cut to pieces in the temple of Nanaea by the treachery of Nanaea’s priests.
14. For Antiochus, on the pretense that he would marry her, came into the place, he and his Friends that were with him, that they might take a great part of the treasures in name of a dowry.
15. And when the priests of Nanaea’s temple had set the treasures forth, and he was come there with a small company within the wall of the precincts, they shut to the temple when Antiochus was come in:
16. and opening the secret door of the panelled cieling, they threw stones and struck down the prince, and they hewed him and his company in pieces, and struck off their heads, and cast them to those that were without.