1 Maccabees 4:36-56

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition

³⁶ Then Judas, and his brethren said: Behold our enemies are discomfited: let us go up now to cleanse the holy places and to repair them.

³⁷ And all the army assembled together, and they went up into mount Sion.

³⁸ And they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burnt, and shrubs growing up in the courts as in a forest, or on the mountains, and the chambers joining to the temple thrown down.

³⁹ And they rent their garments, and made great lamentation, and put ashes on their heads:

⁴⁰ And they fell face down to the ground on their faces, and they sounded with the trumpets of alarm, and they cried towards heaven.

⁴¹ Then Judas appointed men to fight against them that were in the castle, till they had cleansed the holy places.

⁴² And he chose priests without blemish, whose will was set upon the law of God:

⁴³ And they cleansed the holy places, and took away the stones that had been defiled into an unclean place.

⁴⁴ And he considered about the altar of holocausts that had been profaned, what he should do with it.

⁴⁵ And a good counsel came into their minds, to pull it down: lest it should be a reproach to them, because the Gentiles had defiled it; so they threw it down.

⁴⁶ And they laid up the stones in the mountain of the temple in a convenient place, till there should come a prophet, and give answer concerning them.

⁴⁷ Then they took whole stones according to the law, and built a new altar according to the former:

⁴⁸ And they built up the holy places, and the things that were within the temple: and they sanctified the temple, and the courts.

⁴⁹ And they made new holy vessels, and brought in the candlestick, and the altar of incense, and the table into the temple.

⁵⁰ And they put incense upon the altar, and lighted up the lamps that were upon the candlestick, and they gave light in the temple.

⁵¹ And they set the loaves upon the table, and hung up the veils, and finished all the works that they had begun to make.

⁵² And they arose before the morning on the five and twentieth day of the ninth month (which is the month of Casleu) in the hundred and forty-eighth year.

⁵³ And they offered sacrifice according to the law upon the new altar of holocausts which they had made.

⁵⁴ According to the time, and according to the day wherein the heathens had defiled it, in the same was it dedicated anew with canticles, and harps, and lutes, and cymbals.

⁵⁵ And all the people fell upon their faces, and adored, and blessed up to heaven, him that had prospered them.

⁵⁶ And they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and they offered holocausts with joy, and sacrifices of salvation, and of praise.