16 And so, since we will be celebrating the purification, we wrote to you. Therefore, you will do well, if you keep these days.
17 But we hope that God, who has freed his people and has rendered to all the inheritance, and the kingdom, and the priesthood, and sanctification,
18 just as he promised in the law, will quickly have mercy on us and will gather us together from under heaven into the holy place.
19 For he has rescued us from great perils, and he has purged the place.
20 The truth about Judas Maccabeus, and his brothers, and the purification of the great temple, and the dedication of the altar,
21 and also about the battles, which pertain to Antiochus the illustrious, and his son, Eupator,
22 and about the illuminations, which came from heaven to those who acted on behalf of the Jews with fortitude, was such that they, though few, vindicated the entire region and put to flight a multitude of the barbarous,