5 In Persia a messenger reached him with the news that the armies he had sent into Judea had been defeated.
6 Lysias and his strong army had been forced to flee from the Jews, who were now reinforced by the additional weapons, supplies, and loot they had taken from the defeated armies.
7 The Jews had pulled down the thing they called “The Awful Horror” that Antiochus had built on the altar in Jerusalem. They had also surrounded the Temple with high walls, as it had been before, and had taken and fortified the town of Bethzur, one of the king's own towns.
8 When the king heard this report, he was so dumbfounded and terribly shaken that he went to bed in a fit of deep depression because things had not turned out as he had hoped.
9 He remained ill for a long time, as waves of despair swept over him, until he finally realized that he was going to die.
10 He called together all those to whom he had given the title “Friends of the King” and said to them, “I cannot sleep, and my heart is broken with grief and worry.
11 At first I asked myself why these great waves of trouble were sweeping over me, since I have been kind and well-liked during my reign.