Teil II

CHORUS Israelites
Fallen is the foe; so fall Thy foes, oh Lord! Where warlike Judas wields his righteous sword.

RECITATIVE Israelitish man
Victorious hero! Fame shall tell, with her last breath, how Apollonius fell, and all Samaria fled, by thee pursued through hills of carnage and a sea of blood; while thy resistless prowess dealt around, with their own leader’s sword, the deathful wound. Thus, too, the haughty Seron, Syria’s boast, before thee fell, with his unnumbered host.

AIR
So rapid thy course is, not numberless forces withstand thy all-conquering sword. Though nations surround thee, no power shall confound thee,‘till freedom again be restored.

RECITATIVE Israelitish man
Well may we hope our freedom to receive, such sweet transporting joys thy actions give.

DUET Israelitish woman and man
Sion now her head shall raise, tune your harps to songs of praise.

CHORUS Israelites
Tune your harps to songs of praise, Sion now her head shall raise.

RECITATIVE Israelitish woman
Oh let eternal honours crown his name; Judas! first worthy in the rolls of fame. Say, „He put on the breast-plate as a giant, and girt his warlike harness about him; in his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion’s whelp roaring for his prey."

AIR Israelitish woman
From mighty kings he took the spoil, and with his acts made Judah smile. Judah rejoiceth in his name, and triumphs in her hero’s fame.

DUET Israelitish man and woman
Hail, hail, Judea, happy land!
Salvation prospers in his hand.

RECITATIVE Judas Maccabaeus
Thanks to my brethren; but look up to Heaven; to Heaven let glory and all praise be given; to Heaven give your applause, nor add the second cause, as once your fathers did in Midian, saying, „The sword of God and Gideon". It was the Lord that for his Israel fought, and this our wonderful salvation wrought.

AIR Judas Maccabaeus
How vain is man, who boasts in fight the valour of gigantic might! And dreams not that a hand unseen directs and guides this weak machine.

RECITATIVE Messenger
Oh Judas! oh my brethren! New scenes of bloody war in all their horrors rise. Prepare, prepare, or soon we fall a sacrifice to great Antiochus; from the Egyptian coast, (where Ptolemy hath Memphis and Pelusium lost) he sends the valiant Gorgias, and commands his proud, victorious bands to root out Isreal’s strength, and to erase every memorial of the sacred place.

AIR Israelitish man
Ah! wretched Israel! fallen, how low, from joyous transport to desponding woe.

CHORUS Israelites
Ah! wretched Israel! fallen, how low, from joyous transport to desponding woe.

RECITATIVE Simon
Be comforted, nor think these plaques are sent for your destruction, but for chastisement. Heaven oft in mercy punisheth, that sin may feel its own demerits from within, and urge not utter ruin. Turn to God, and draw a blessing from His iron rod.

AIR Simon
The Lord worketh wonders his glory to raise; and still, as he thunders, is fearful in praise.

RECITATIVE Judas Maccabaeus
My arms! against this Gorgias will I go. The Idumean governor shall know, how vain, how ineffective his design, while rage his leader, and Jehovah mine.

AIR
Sound an alarm! your silver trumpets sound, and call the brave, and only brave, around. Who listeth, follow: to the field again! Justice with courage is a thousand men.

CHORUS Israelites
We hear, we hear the pleasing, dreadful call, and follow thee to conquest; if to fall, for laws, religion, liberty, we fall.

*Konzertpause*

RECITATIVE Simon
Enough! to Heaven we leave the rest. Such generous ardour firing every breast, we may devide our cares; the field be thine, oh Judas, and the sanctuary mine; for Sion, holy Sion, seat of God, in ruinous heaps, is by the heathen trod; such profanation calls for swift redress, if ever in battle Israel hopes success.

AIR Simon
With pious hearts, and brave as pious, oh Sion, we thy call attend, nor dread the nations that defy us, God our defender, God our friend.

RECITATIVE Israelitish man
Ye worshippers of God, down, down with the polluted altars, down; hurl Jupiter Olympus from his throne, nor reverence Bacchus with his ivy crown and ivy-wreathed rod. Our fathers nover knew him, or his hated crew, or, knowing, scorned such idol vanities.

RECITATIVE Israelitish man
No more in Sion let the virgin throng, wild with delusion, pay their nightly song to Ashtoreth, yclept the Queen of Heaven. Hence to Phoenicia be the goddess driven, or be she, with her priests and pageants, hurled to the remotest corner of the world, never to delude us more with pious lies.

AIR Israelitish man
Wise men, flattering, may deceive you with their, vain mysterious art; magic charms can never relieve you, nor can heal the wounded heart. But true wis-
dom can relieve you, godlike wisdom from above; this alone can never deceive you, this alone all pains remove.

DUET Israelitish woman and man
Oh! never, never bow we down to the rude stock or sculptured stone: but ever worship Isreal’s God, ever obedient to his awful nod.

CHORUS Israelites
We never, never will bow down to the rude stock or sculptured stone.
We worship God, and God alone.