Key Verse Spotlight
2 Maccabees 12:24 - Meaning and Application
Understand how this verse speaks to what you're facing and how to apply it today
Translation: World English Bible — Catholic Edition
" Timotheus himself, falling in with the company of Dositheus and Sosipater, implored them with much crafty guile to let him go with his life, because he had in his power the parents of many of them and the kindred of some. “Otherwise, he said, little regard will be shown to these.” "
2 Maccabees 12:24
Verse in Context
Understanding the surrounding verses prevents misinterpretation:
22 When the band of Judas, who led the first division, appeared in sight, and when terror and fear came upon the enemy, because the manifestation of him who sees all things came upon them, they fled in every direction, carried this way and that, so that they were often injured by their own men, and pierced with the points of their own swords.
23 Judas continued the pursuit more vigorously, putting the wicked wretches to the sword, and he destroyed as many as thirty thousand men.
24 Timotheus himself, falling in with the company of Dositheus and Sosipater, implored them with much crafty guile to let him go with his life, because he had in his power the parents of many of them and the kindred of some. “Otherwise, he said, little regard will be shown to these.”
25 So when he had with many words confirmed the agreement to restore them without harm, they let him go that they might save their kindred.
26 Then Judas, marching against Carnion and the temple of Atergatis, killed twenty-five thousand people.
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2 Maccabees 12:1
"So when this agreement had been made, Lysias departed to the king, and the Jews went about their farming."
2 Maccabees 12:2
"But some of the governors of districts, Timotheus and Apollonius the son of Gennaeus, and also Hieronymus and Demophon, and beside them Nicanor the governor of Cyprus, would not allow them to enjoy tranquillity and live in peace."
2 Maccabees 12:3
"Men of Joppa perpetrated this great impiety: they invited the Jews who lived among them to go with their wives and children into the boats which they had provided, as though they had no ill will toward them."
2 Maccabees 12:4
"When the Jews, relying on the public vote of the city, accepted the invitation, as men desiring to live in peace and suspecting nothing, they took them out to sea and drowned not less than two hundred of them."
2 Maccabees 12:5
"When Judas heard of the cruelty done to his fellow countrymen, giving command to the men that were with him"
2 Maccabees 12:6
"and calling upon God the righteous Judge, he came against the murderers of his kindred, and set the harbor on fire at night, burned the boats, and put to the sword those who had fled there."
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