Polyglot Bible: 1 Macabees: 1 Macabees 16

This is the final chapter (Chapter 16) of 1 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical historical book recounting the Maccabean revolt, presented here in a three-column scholarly format: the English Apocrypha translation, the Greek Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate. The chapter covers two main events: John Hyrcanus's military campaign against the Seleucid commander Cendebeus, in which John leads twenty thousand troops to a decisive victory after personally crossing a stream to shame his hesitant soldiers into following; and the treacherous assassination of his father Simon Maccabeus, the Jewish high priest, along with two of Simon's other sons, by Ptolemy son of Abubus at a banquet in the fortress of Docus. The assassination plot extends to John as well, but he survives by executing the would-be killers sent to Gazara before they can act. The chapter closes with a brief regnal formula noting that John's further deeds are recorded in the chronicles of his high priesthood — a standard biblical closing formula signaling the end of the book. The distinctive feature of this presentation is its parallel-text layout enabling direct comparison of the three major textual traditions, making it a resource for biblical translation studies or textual criticism rather than devotional reading.

Polyglot Bible: 1 Macabees: 1 Macabees 16

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