2 Maccabees 15:22–37

And his prayer was in these terms: Thou, Sovereign Lord, didst send thine angel in the days of Hezekiah king of Judaea, and he slew as many as a hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib’s host; so now, O heavenly Sovereign, send a good angel before us to scare and terrify the foe; by the great strength of thine arm may those who have blasphemously assailed thy holy sanctuary be utterly dismayed. And as he ended with these words, Nicanor and his men advanced with trumpets and paeans. But Judas and his men joined battle with the enemy, calling upon God and praying; and so fighting with their hands, while they prayed to God with their hearts, they slew no fewer than thirty-five thousand men, mightily cheered by the manifest help of God. The battle over, they were returning with joy, when they recognized Nicanor lying dead in full armour; a shout of excitement arose, they blessed the Sovereign Lord in the language of their fathers, and he who was ever in body and soul the protagonist of his fellow-citizens, he who retained through life his youthful patriotism, ordered Nicanor’s head and arm to be cut off and carried to Jerusalem. When he arrived there, and had called his country-men together and set the priests before the altar, he sent for the garrison of the citadel, showed them the vile Nicanor’s head and the impious creature’s hand which he had stretched out vauntingly against the holy house of the Almighty; then, cutting out the impious Nicanor’s tongue, he said he would throw it piecemeal to the birds and hang up the rewards of his insensate folly opposite the sanctuary. And they all lifted to heaven their cry of blessing to the Lord who had manifested himself, saying, Blessed be He who hath preserved his own Place undefiled. And he hung Nicanor’s head from the citadel, a clear and conspicuous token to all of the Lord’s help. And all decided, by public decree, never to let this day pass uncelebrated, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—called Adar in Syriac—the day before the day of Mordecai.

Such was the history of Nicanor; and as the city was held from that period by the Hebrews, I will make this the end of my story.