First Reading
1 Maccabees 6:1-13
Read this as the first big movement of the day. Notice what God is doing, who is speaking, and what part of the story or teaching should stay with you.
6:1Now king Antiochus was going through the higher countries, and he heard that the city of Elymais in Persia, was greatly renowned, and abounding in silver and gold,
2And that there was in it a temple exceeding rich; and coverings of gold, and breastplates, and shields, which king Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, that reigned first in Greece, had left there.
3So he came, and sought to take the city and to pillage it; but he was not able, because the design was known to them that were in the city.
4And they rose up against him in battle, and he fled away from from there, and departed with great sadness, and returned towards Babylonia.
5And whilst he was in Persia there came one that told him how the armies that were in the land of Juda were put to flight:
6And that Lysias went with a very great power, and was put to flight before the face of the Jews, and that they were grown strong by the armour, and power, and store of spoils which they had gotten out of the camps which they had destroyed:
7And that they had thrown down the abomination which he had set up upon the altar in Jerusalem, and that they had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls as before, and Bethsura also, his city.
8And it happened, when the king heard these words, that he was struck with fear, and exceedingly moved: and he laid himself down upon his bed, and fell sick for grief, because it had not fallen out to him as he imagined.
9And he remained there many days: for great grief came more and more upon him, and he made account that he should die.
10And he called for all his friends, and said to them: Sleep is gone from my eyes, and I am fallen away, and my heart is cast down for anxiety:
11And I said in my heart: Into how much trouble am I come, and into what floods of sorrow in which now I am: I that was pleasant and beloved in my power!
12But now I remember the evils that I did in Jerusalem, from whence also I took away all the spoils of gold, and of silver, that were in it, and I sent to destroy the inhabitants of Juda without cause.
13I know, therefore, that for this cause these evils have found me: and look I perish with great grief in a strange land.