What does it mean that Judas demands vengeance on the transgressors, if not that our Redeemer justifies his elect and does not allow any of his own to perish in vain? But he exercises vengeance on those who deserve it in two ways: for some, by calling them from the fountain of his great mercy to repentance for their error, he causes them to rise up against themselves, so that with weeping they punish what they formerly did by their misdeeds; but others, by a just judgment, after they have committed crimes, he allows to persist uncorrected in their hardness, so that afterwards he may inflict on them fitting punishments for what they have deserved by their unjust works.
Source: Commentary on 1 Maccabees