Yet the Lord testified unto Israel, and unto Judah, by every prophet, and by every seer, saying, "Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets." Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their hearts, like to the hearts of their fathers, who believed not in the Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified unto them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. And they forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they [{413}] burned their sons and their daughters as sacrifice, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. And the Lord rejected all the people of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he spoke by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day.
TALES OF THE MACCABEES
TALES OF THE MACCABEES
PERSONS OF THE STORY.
Mattathias, a Jewish priest.
Sons of Mattathias.
John,
Simon,
Judas,
Eleazar,
Jonathan,
Alexander the Great.
Antiochus, king of Syria.
Syrian generals under Antiochus.
Apollonius,
Seron,
Ptolemy,
Nicanor,
Gorgias,
Lysias, regent of Syria.
Philip, pretender to Syrian crown.
Demetrius I., king of Syria.
Syrian generals under Demetrius.
Bacchides,
Nicanor,
Alexander Bolas, A general who contested with Demetrius for the Syrian crown.
Demetrius II., king of Syria.
Antiochus, son of Bolas, pretender to the crown.
Tryphon, a general who supported Antiochus, and who afterward became king.
Antiochus VII., brother of Demetrius II., who defeated Tryphon.
Ptolemy, king of Egypt.
PLACE OF THE STORY.
The action moves over nearly the whole of Palestine. Some of the places mentioned are Modin, home of the Maccabees, Jerusalem, Beth-Horon, Bethsura, Jaffa, Kedesh, Gazara.