1 Maccabees 1:41–60
The Revised Standard Version, Catholic EditionOther versions
English
- RSVCE The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition
- Apocrypha of the Old Testament
- AV 1873 The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version
- D-R Douay-Rheims Bible
- KJV Apoc The King James Version Apocrypha
- NRSVue New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition
- RSV The Revised Standard Version
Latin
41Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, 42and that each should give up his customs. 43All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. 44And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, 45to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and feasts, 46to defile the sanctuary and the priests, 47to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, 48and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, 49so that they should forget the law and change all the ordinances. 50“And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die.”
51In such words he wrote to his whole kingdom. And he appointed inspectors over all the people and commanded the cities of Judah to offer sacrifice, city by city. 52Many of the people, every one who forsook the law, joined them, and they did evil in the land; 53they drove Israel into hiding in every place of refuge they had.
54Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of Judah, 55and burned incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets. 56The books of the law which they found they tore to pieces and burned with fire. 57Where the book of the covenant was found in the possession of any one, or if any one adhered to the law, the decree of the king condemned him to death. 58They kept using violence against Israel, against those found month after month in the cities. 59And on the twenty-fifth day of the month they offered sacrifice on the altar which was upon the altar of burnt offering. 60According to the decree, they put to death the women who had their children circumcised,
Copyright 1965, 1966 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.