2 Machabees 5

¹At the same time Antiochus prepared a second journey into Ægypt.

²And it came to pass: that throughout the whole city of Jerusalem were seen for forty days in the air horsemen running hither and thither, having golden stoles, and spears, as it were companies armed,

³and coursing of horses set in orders by ranks, & that there were encounterings together near hand, and shakings of shields, and a multitude of men in helmets with swords drawn, & throwing of darts, & the glittering of golden armour, and of all kind of harness.

⁴Wherefore all prayed that the wonders might be turned to good.

⁵But when there was a false rumour gone forth, as though Antiochus had been parted this life, Jason taking unto him no less than a thousand men, suddenly set upon the city: and the citizens flying together to the wall, at the last the city being taken, Menelaus fled into the castle.

⁶But Jason spared not his citizens in murder, nor considered, that prosperity against kinsmen is a very great evil, supposing that he should take the victorious spoils of the enemies, and not of his citizens.

⁷And the princedom verily he obtained not, but received confusion, the end of his treachery, and went again a fugitive into the country of the Ammanites.

⁸At last to his own destruction being inclosed of Aretas the tyrant of the Arabians, flying from city to city, odious to all men, as an apostata from the laws, and execrable, as an enemy of his country and citizens, he was thrust out into Ægypt:

⁹and he that had expelled many out of their country, perished in a strange place, going to the Lacedemonians, as being like for kindred sake to have refuge there:

¹⁰but he that cast away many unburied, himself both unlamented, and unburied is cast forth, neither enjoying foreign burial, nor partaker of the sepulchre of his father's.

¹¹These things therefore being done, the king suspected that the Jews would forsake the society: & for this departing out of Ægypt with a furious mind, he took the city by arms.

¹²And he bade the soldiers kill, and not spare them that came in their way, to murder them that went up into the houses.

¹³Slaughters therefore were made of young men & old, and destructions of women and children, & murders of virgins and little ones.

¹⁴And there were in the whole three days four score thousand slain, forty thousand prisoners, and no less sold.

¹⁵But neither do these things suffice, he presumed also to enter into the temple, in all the earth the most holy, Menelaus being his leader, who was betrayer of the laws, and his country.

¹⁶And with wicked hands taking the holy vessels, which by other kings & cities were set for the ornament and the glory of the place, he unworthily handled and contaminated them.

¹⁷So Antiochus being alienated in mind, considered not, that for the sins of them that inhabit the city, God had been angry a little: for the which also happened the contempt about the place:

¹⁸otherwise unless it had chanced them to have been wrapped in many sins, as Heliodorus, who was sent of Seleucus the king to spoil the treasury, this man also immediately as he came had been scourged, and repelled verily from his boldness.

¹⁹But not the nation for the place, but the place for the nation hath God chosen.

²⁰And therefore the place also itself is made partaker of the people's evils: but afterward it shall be partaker of the good things, and it that was forsaken in the wrath of almighty God, shall be exalted again with great glory in the reconciliation of the great Lord.

²¹Therefore Antiochus having taken away out of the temple a thousand & eight hundred talents, speedily went back to Antioch, thinking through pride, that he might bring the land to sail upon, & the sea to go upon, through haughtiness of mind.

²²And he left also rulers to afflict the nation: at Jerusalem, Philip a Phrygian born, more cruel of manners than he himself by whom he was appointed:

²³and in Garizim Andronicus & Menelaus, who lay more grievously upon the citizens than the rest.

²⁴And whereas he was set against the Jews, he sent the odious prince Apollonius with an army of two and twenty thousand, commanding him to kill all of perfect age, to sell the women and the young ones.

²⁵Who when he was come to Jerusalem, feigning peace, rested until the holy day of the Sabbath: and then the Jews keeping holy day, he commanded his men to take weapons.

²⁶And he murdered all that were gone forth to behold the games: and running through the city with armed men, he slew a very great multitude.

²⁷But Judas Machabeus, who was the tenth, was retired into a desert place, and there amongst wild beasts he led his life in the mountains with his company: and they abode eating meat of grass, that they might not be partakers of the contamination.