123:6.7

John went up from Gazara and told Simon his father what Cendebaeus was doing. Simon called his two oldest sons, Judas and John, and said to them, “I and my brothers and my father’s house have fought the battles of Israel from our youth, even to this day; and things have prospered in our hands, so that we have often delivered Israel. But now I am old, and you moreover, by his mercy, are of a sufficient age. Take the place of me and my brother, and go out and fight for our nation; and let the help which is from heaven be with you.

But the people of the citadel in Jerusalem were hindered from going out and from going into the country, and from buying and selling. So they were very hungry, and a great number of them perished from famine. Then they cried out to Simon, that he should give them his right hand; and he gave it to them; but he expelled them from there, and he cleansed the citadel from its pollutions. He entered into it on the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, with praise and palm branches, with harps, with cymbals, and with stringed instruments, with hymns, and with songs, because a great enemy had been destroyed out of Israel. Simon ordained that they should keep that day every year with gladness. He made the hill of the temple that was by the citadel stronger than before, and he lived there with his men. Simon saw that his son John was a man, so he made him leader of all his forces; and he lived in Gazara.

One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).