37 Thank you for the gold crown and the gold palm branch you sent me. I am ready to make a lasting peace by ordering my officials to stop collecting taxes from you.
38 I will give you everything I have promised in our treaties. Besides that, you can keep the fortresses you have just built.
39 I forgive everything you have done wrong in the past. And from now on, I won't collect the special royal tax or any of the other taxes I used to receive from Jerusalem.
40 I will hire any of your people who are prepared to help me in my kingdom. Let's give peace a chance!
41 So in the year 170 of the Syrian Kingdom, the Jews won their freedom from the Gentiles.
42 And on their documents and contracts they wrote, “The first year of Simon, the great high priest and the commander and ruler of the Jews.”
43 About this time, Simon and the Jewish forces surrounded the town of Gazara and set up a large weapon to break through the wall. They pushed it up to the town wall, where they broke through and captured one of the towers.