1 Maccabees 13

The spirit of the people was rekindled when they heard these words, and they answered in a loud voice, "You are our leader in place of Judas and Jonathan your brother. Fight our battles, and all that you say to us we will do."

So he assembled all the warriors and hastened to complete the walls of Jerusalem, and he fortified it on every side. He sent Jonathan the son of Absalom to Joppa, and with him a considerable army; he drove out its occupants and remained there. Then Trypho departed from Ptolemais with a large army to invade the land of Judah, and Jonathan was with him under guard. And Simon encamped in Adida, facing the plain.

Trypho learned that Simon had risen up in place of Jonathan his brother, and that he was about to join battle with him, so he sent envoys to him and said "It is for the money that Jonathan your brother owed the royal treasury, in connection with the offices he held, that we are detaining him. Send now a hundred talents of silver and two of his sons as hostages, so that when released he will not revolt against us, and we will release him."

Simon knew that they were speaking deceitfully to him, but he sent to get the money and the sons, lest he arouse great hostility among the people, who might say, "Because Simon did not send him the money and the sons, he perished."

So he sent the sons and the hundred talents, but Trypho broke his word and did not release Jonathan. After this Trypho came to invade the country and destroy it, and he circled around by the way to Adora. But Simon and his army kept marching along opposite him to every place he went. Now the men in the citadel kept sending envoys to Trypho urging him to come to them by way of the wilderness and to send them food. So Trypho got all his cavalry ready to go, but that night a very heavy snow fell, and he did not go because of the snow. He marched off and went into the land of Gilead.

When he approached Baskama, he killed Jonathan, and he was buried there. Then Trypho turned back and departed to his own land. And Simon sent and took the bones of Jonathan his brother, and buried him in Mode'in, the city of his fathers. All Israel bewailed him with great lamentation, and mourned for him many days.

Trypho dealt treacherously with the young king Antiochus; he killed him and became king in his place, putting on the crown of Asia; and he brought great calamity upon the land.

In those days Simon encamped against Gazara and surrounded it with troops. He made a siege engine, brought it up to the city, and battered and captured one tower. The men in the siege engine leaped out into the city, and a great tumult arose in the city. The men in the city, with their wives and children, went up on the wall with their clothes rent, and they cried out with a loud voice, asking Simon to make peace with them; they said, "Do not treat us according to our wicked acts but according to your mercy."

So Simon reached an agreement with them and stopped fighting against them. But he expelled them from the city and cleansed the houses in which the idols were, and then entered it with hymns and praise. He cast out of it all uncleanness, and settled in it men who observed the law. He also strengthened its fortifications and built in it a house for himself.

The men in the citadel at Jerusalem were prevented from going out to the country and back to buy and sell. So they were very hungry, and many of them perished from famine. Then they cried to Simon to make peace with them, and he did so. But he expelled them from there and cleansed the citadel from its pollutions.

On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year [SE; 3 June 141], the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel. And Simon decreed that every year they should celebrate this day with rejoicing. He strengthened the fortifications of the temple hill alongside the citadel, and he and his men dwelt there. And Simon saw that John his son had reached manhood, so he made him commander of all the forces, and he dwelt in Gazara.