This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[305]
And this was the speech which Judas made to encourage them. But when
the enemy sent Gorgias, with five thousand foot and one thousand horse,
that he might fall upon Judas by night, and had for that purpose certain
of the runagate Jews as guides, the son of Mattathias perceived it, and
resolved to fall upon those enemies that were in their camp, now their
forces were divided. When they had therefore supped in good time, and had
left many fires in their camp, he marched all night to those enemies that
were at Emmaus. So that when Gorgias found no enemy in their camp, but
suspected that they were retired, and had hidden themselves among the mountains,
he resolved to go and seek them wheresoever they were. But about break
of day Judas appeared to those enemies that were at Emmaus, with only three
thousand men, and those ill armed, by reason of their poverty; and when
he saw the enemy very well and skillfully fortified in their camp, he encouraged
the Jews, and told them that they ought to fight, though it were with their
naked bodies, for that God had sometimes of old given such men strength,
and that against such as were more in number, and were armed also, out
of regard to their great courage. So he commanded the trumpeters to sound
for the battle; and by thus falling upon the enemies when they did not
expect it, and thereby astonishing and disturbing their minds, he slew
many of those that resisted him, and went on pursuing the rest as far as
Gadara, and the plains of Idumea, and Ashdod, and Jamnia; and of these
there fell about three thousand. Yet did Judas exhort his soldiers not
to be too desirous of the spoils, for that still they must have a contest
and battle with Gorgias, and the forces that were with him; but that when
they had once overcome them, then they might securely plunder the camp,
because they were the only enemies remaining, and they expected no others.
And just as he was speaking to his soldiers, Gorgias's men looked down
into that army which they left in their camp, and saw that it was overthrown,
and the camp burnt; for the smoke that arose from it showed them, even
when they were a great way off, what had happened. When therefore those
that were with Gorgias understood that things were in this posture, and
perceived that those that were with Judas were ready to fight them, they
also were affrighted, and put to flight; but then Judas, as though he had
already beaten Gorgias's soldiers without fighting, returned and seized
on the spoils. He took a great quantity of gold, and silver, and purple,
and blue, and then returned home with joy, and singing hymns to God for
their good success; for this victory greatly contributed to the recovery
of their liberty.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.