³⁸ There they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. In the courts they saw bushes sprung up as in a thicket or as on one of the mountains. They saw also the chambers of the priests in ruins.^(A)

⁵⁰ Then they offered incense on the altar and lit the lamps on the lampstand, and these gave light in the temple.^{(A) 51} They placed the bread on the table and hung up the curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken.^(B)

⁵² Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev, in the one hundred forty-eighth year,^{(C) 53} they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering that they had built.^(D)

³³ While they were celebrating the victory in the city of their ancestors, they burned those who had set fire to the sacred gates, Callisthenes and some others, who had fled into one little house, so these received the proper reward for their impiety.^[a](A)