Josippon

At that time, King Antiochus returned from Persia in disgrace, for the Persians had forced him to flee. When he reached Ecbatana, he was told all that Yehudah had done to his chiefs when he smote them. Antiochus was filled with wrath, and he became exceedingly angry, and he raged and cursed, saying: "I will come to Jerusalem; I will make it a graveyard; I will fill it with the corpses of the slain." He gathered his entire army—chariot corps and cavalry and an immense horde.

God was jealous for His people and His city and His Sanctuary. Remembering all the evil that Antiochus had done to His people, He demanded the blood for the Hasidim from Antiochus himself. So God struck him with boils and with a sickness of the intestines, but he was not subdued by the sickness and said: "Hurry the chariots; hasten the cavalry; quicken the foot soldiers; and I shall go to Jerusalem, for I will do my will as I have spoken, and who can resist me? Are not the sea and the land mine, to change their nature as I please, to make the sea land and the land sea?" When he had finished speaking, he rode upon his chariot and went with all his army, a very great army, and with him were many elephants and a very great force. On the road, when his chariot was passing by an elephant, the elephant trumpeted, and the horses bolted. They slipped the traces and overturned the chariot; Antiochus fell from the chariot and broke all his bones, for he was a heavy and fat man. God added woe to his sorrow and made all his flesh stink. The flesh of Antiochus gave off an odor like the smell of a corpse's flesh left upon the field during summer. His servants carried him on their shoulders for a short while, then threw him to the ground and fled from him, for they could neither approach him nor bear the foul stench that exuded from the flesh of that blasphemer and curser and enemy of God.

When all the force and he himself could no longer stand the foul stench that exuded from his flesh, he knew that the hand of God afflicted him. Humiliated and subdued, he said: "Righteous is God who humbles the mighty and who has humiliated and subdued a wicked one like me this day because I did all the evil that I did unto His people and His Hasidim. Therefore, all these evils have afflicted me." He swore an oath, saying: "If God will heal me from this disease, I shall come to Jerusalem and fill her with silver and gold and spread purple clothes throughout her streets; and I shall give all my treasures to the temple of the great God; I shall circumcise the flesh of my foreskin and go throughout the land calling out loud: 'There is none like the Lord God of Israel in all the world.'" But God did not listen to his prayer nor hearken to him, for throughout the journey of the cruel Antiochus, his disease remained, his flesh tore from his bones, and finally his intestines fell out upon the ground; and he paid with his life, dying in shame and disgrace in a foreign land; and Eupator, his son, reigned in his stead.

Yehudah, son of Mattathias, and the congregation of the Hasidim came to Jerusalem and destroyed the altars that the uncircumcised had built, and they purified the House of the gentiles' idols. They built a new altar, gave meat for the sacrifice, and arranged wood, but they did not find the holy fire. They called unto God, and fire came forth from the stone upon the altar, and they put wood upon it. This fire lasted until the third exile. They dedicated the altar on the twenty-fifth of Kislev and set forth the Shew-Bread and lit the candles and praised God by reading the Hallel for eight days.