5 Maccabees

The Fifth book of the Maccabees is an ancient Jewish work relating the history in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.The book chronicles the events from Heliodorus' attempt to rob the Temple treasury in 186 BC to the death of Herod the Great's two sons about 6 BC. It is little more than a summary of the events in first and second book of the Maccabees and the relevant chapters in Flavius Josephus. Only chapter 12 is original but also "seems with errors of various kinds". Similar to other Books of the Maccabees, this work aims at consoling Jews in their sufferings and encouraging them to be steadfast "in their devotion to the Mosaic law".