Nicanor plans to attack Judas on the Sabbath and blasphemes against the Lord, boasting that he will level the temple and threatening the priests who plead the sanctity of the day. Judas rallies his men by recounting God's past help and by telling a dream in which the former high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah appeared, Jeremiah presenting him a golden sword as a gift from God to strike down His adversaries. Battle is joined, and Nicanor falls first of all; his army breaks, and his head and blaspheming arm are cut off and displayed at Jerusalem, and the people ordain the thirteenth of Adar as a yearly day of remembrance. The compiler then closes with an epilogue, likening his effort to wine tempered with water and asking his readers' indulgence, and the chapter matters as the book's triumphant end, the deliverance of temple and city sealed and the courage and hope of God's people set forth for all who would remember.