20. and the help given in the land of Babylon, even the battle that was fought against the Gauls, how that they came to the engagement eight thousand in all, with four thousand Macedonians, and how that, the Macedonians being hard pressed, the six thousand destroyed the hundred and twenty thousand, because of the succour which they had from heaven, and took great booty.
21. And when he had with these words made them of good courage, and ready to die for the laws and their country, he divided his army into four parts;
22. appointing his brethren to be with himself leaders of the several bands, to wit, Simon and Joseph and Jonathan, giving each the command of fifteen hundred men,
23. and moreover Eleazer also: then, having read aloud the sacred book, and having given as watchword, THE HELP OF GOD, leading the first band himself, he joined battle with Nicanor.
24. And, since the Almighty fought on their side, they killed of the enemy above nine thousand, and wounded and disabled the more part of Nicanor’s army, and compelled all to flee:
25. and they took the money of those that had come there to buy them. And after they had pursued them for some distance, they returned, being constrained by the time of the day;
26. for it was the day before the Sabbath, and for this cause they made no effort to chase them far.
27. And when they had gathered the arms of the enemy together, and had stripped off their spoils, they occupied themselves about the Sabbath, blessing and thanking the Lord exceedingly, who had saved them to this day, for that he had caused a beginning of mercy to distil upon them.
28. And after the Sabbath, when they had given of the spoils to the maimed, and to the widows and orphans, the residue they distributed among themselves and their children.
29. And when they had accomplished these things, and had made a common supplication, they implored the merciful Lord to be wholly reconciled with his servants.
30. And having had an encounter with the forces of Timotheus and Bacchides, they killed above twenty thousand of them, and made themselves masters of strongholds exceeding high, and divided very much plunder, giving the maimed and orphans and widows, and moreover the aged also, an equal share with themselves.
31. And when they had gathered the arms of the enemy together, they stored them all up carefully in the most important positions, and the residue of the spoils they carried to Jerusalem.
32. And they killed the phylarch of Timotheus’s forces, a most unholy man, and one who had done the Jews much hurt.
33. And as they kept the feast of victory in the city of their fathers, they burned those that had set the sacred gates on fire, and among them Callisthenes, who had fled into an outhouse; and so they received the meet reward of their impiety.
34. And the thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Jews for slaves,
35. being through the help of the Lord humbled by them who in his eyes were held to be of least account, put off his glorious apparel, and passing through the midland, shunning all company like a fugitive slave, arrived at Antioch, having, as he thought, had the greatest possible good fortune, though his host was destroyed.