1 Maccabees 5:45-47

New Catholic Bible

⁴⁵ Then Judas assembled all the Israelites who dwelt in Gilead, both great and small, with their wives and their children and their possessions, an enormous company of people, to escort them to the land of Judah. ⁴⁶ When they reached Ephron,^[a] a large, strongly fortified town situated along the road, they discovered that it was impossible to bypass it to either the right or the left; they had no other option than to pass through it. ⁴⁷ However, the inhabitants of the town barricaded the gates with stones and denied them passage.