Day 290: Judas Maccabeus Dies (2026)

Fr. Mike Schmitz (0:00)

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Thank you and God bless.

Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz and you're listening to The Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 290

Day 290, we're reading 1 Maccabees chapter 9, Sirach 24 and 25, Proverbs chapter 23 verses 1 through 4 As always, the Bible translation I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking on subscribe and receiving daily episodes and daily updates. One of the things I forgot, gosh, I've never mentioned this. It's day 290, I've never mentioned this. There's a woman named Marisa Beier. Whenever you have heard this intro, she wrote it. It's one of those things that I just like, wow. You know, she sat down and said, you know what? For the introduction to the Bible in a Year, here's what we want to say. And she wrote this thing. Super grateful. She does a thousand other things too, but she also wrote the intro to this. Also, Lindsay Ruttiger is the young woman who basically, if you have been following along The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, she was the one who took Jeff's timeline and reworked it to fit an entire year, 365 days of reading and covering the entire Bible. That's Lindsay Ruttiger. She did that. And then also, if you are just, gosh, we're so blessed by Elizabeth Boyd, who has been the editor among others, but Elizabeth Boyd has edited so many of these episodes. And it's just like these, in these women, they also do a thousand other things as well. And we're so grateful for them, but they are behind the scenes and never get a chance to be named. And I say that not only to honor them, because I'm just so grateful for what they have done, but also so that you know who you're praying for. When I'm praying for you all and you're praying for me, but also these other people involved, Marisa and Elizabeth and Lindsay, and there's a whole other team of people who are involved in this. But yeah, we're praying for each other. This is a community, and I know that I've talked to so many people who have said, yeah, this feels like a community. It feels like I'm not going through this on my own, because you're not. It is day 290, you've been journeying with all of us for 290 days or more, and we're reading, 1 Maccabees 9, Sirach 24 and 25, and Proverbs chapter 23, verses 1 through 4

The First Book of Maccabees, chapter 9 Maccabees returns to Judea.

When Demetrius heard that Niconore and his army had fallen in battle, he sent Maccabees and Alchemus into the land of Judah a second time, and with them the right wing of the army. They went by the road which leads to Gilgal, and encamped against Meseloth in Arbala, and they took it and killed many people. In the first month of the 152nd year, they encamped against Jerusalem. Then they marched off and went to Borea with 20,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 cavalry. Now Judas was encamped in Elassah, and with him were 3,000 picked men. When they saw the huge number of the enemy forces, they were greatly frightened, and many slipped away from the camp, until no more than 800 of them were left. When Judas saw that his army had slipped away, and the battle was imminent, he was crushed in spirit, for he had no time to assemble them. He became faint, but he said to those who were left, Let us rise and go up against our enemies. We may be able to fight them. But they tried to dissuade him, saying, We are not able, let us rather save our own lives now, and let us come back with our brethren and fight them, we are too few.