30 Having had an encounter with the forces of Timotheos and Bakides, they killed more than twenty thousand of them, and made themselves masters of exceedingly high strongholds, and divided very much plunder, giving the maimed,[fn] orphans, widows, and the aged an equal share with themselves. 31 When they had gathered the weapons of the enemy[fn] together,[fn] they stored them all up carefully in the most strategic positions, and they carried the rest of the spoils to Yerushalem (Jerusalem). 32 They killed the phylarch[fn] of Timotheos’s forces, a most unholy man, and one who had done the Yehudim much harm. 33 As they celebrated the feast of victory in the city[fn] of their fathers, they burnt those who had set the sacred gates[fn] on fire, including Kalisthenes, who had fled into a[fn] little house. So they received the proper reward for their impiety.[fn]

34 The thrice-accursed Nikanor, who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Yehudim (Jews) as slaves, 35 being through the help of the master humbled by them who in his eyes were held to be of least account, took off his glorious apparel, and passing through the country, shunning[fn] all company like a fugitive slave, arrived at Antiokeia, having, as he thought, had the greatest possible good fortune, though his army was destroyed.[fn] 36 He who had taken upon himself to make tribute sure for the Romaios by the captivity of the men of Yerushalem published abroad that the Yehudim had One who fought for them, and that because[fn] this was so, the Yehudim were invulnerable, because they followed the laws ordained by him.