2 Maccabees 5
2 Of the signs and tokens seen in Jerusalem. 6 Of the end and wickedness of Jason. 11 The pursuit of Antiochus against the Jews. 13 The spoiling of the Temple. 2 Maccabeus flees into the wilderness.
ABOUT the same time Antiochus undertook his second voyage into Egypt.
And then were there seen throughout all the city of Jerusalem, forty days long, horsemen running in the air, with robes of gold, and as bands of spearmen,
And as troops of horsemen set in array, encountering and coursing one against another with shaking of shields and multitudes of darts and drawing of swords, and shooting of arrows, and the glittering of the golden armor seen, and harness of all sorts.
Therefore every man prayed, that those tokens might turn to good.
Now when there was gone forth a false rumor, as though Antiochus had been dead, Jason took at the least a thousand men, and came suddenly upon the city, and they that were upon the walls, being put back and the city at length taken,
Menelaus fled into the castle, but Jason slew his own citizens without mercy, not considering that to have the advantage against his kinsmen is greatest disadvantage, but thought that he had gotten the victory of his enemies, and not of his own nation.
Yet he got not the superiority, but at the last received shame for the reward of his treason, and sent again like a vagabond into the country of the Ammonites.
Finally he had this end of his wicked conversation, and he was accused before Areta, the King of the Arabians, and fled from city to city, being pursued of every man, and hated as a foresaker of the Laws, and was in abomination, as an enemy of his country and citizens, and was driven into Egypt.
Thus he had chased many out of their own country, perished as a banished man, after that he was gone to the Lacedemonians, thinking there to have gotten succor by reason of kindred.
And he that had cast many out unburied, was thrown out himself, no man mourning for him, nor putting him in his grave: neither was he partaker of his father’s sepluchre.
Now when these things that were done, were declared to the King, he thought that Judea would have fallen from him: wherefore he came with a furious mind out of Egypt, and took the city by violence.
He commanded his men of war also, that they should kill, and not spare such as they met, and to slay such as went into their houses.
Thus was there a slaughter of young men, and old men, and a destruction of men and women and children, and virgins, and infants were murdered:
So that within three days were slain fourscore thousand, and forty thousand taken prisoners, and there were as many sold as were slain.
Yet was he not content with this, but did go into the most holy Temple of all the world, having Menelaus that traitor to the Laws, and to his own country, to be his guide,
And with his wicked hands took the holy vessels, which other Kings had given for the garnishing, glory and honor of that place, and handled them with his wicked hands.
So haughty in his mind was Antiochus, that he considered not, that God was not a little wroth for the sins of them that dwelt in the city, for the which such contempt came upon that place.
For if they had not been wrapped in many sins, he, as soon as he had come, had suddenly been punished, and put back from his presumption, as Heliodorus was, whom Seleucus the King sent to view the treasury.
But God hath not chosen the nation for the places sake, but the place for the nation’s sake.
And therefore is the place become partaker of the people’s trouble, but afterward shall it be partaker of the benefits of the Lord, and as it is now forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty, so when the great Lord shall be reconciled, it shall be set up in great worship again.
So when Antiochus had taken eighteen hundred talents out of the Temple, he got him to Antiochia in all haste, thinking in his pride to make men slay upon the dry land, and to walk upon the sea: such an high mind had he.
But he left deputies to vex the people: at Jerusalem Pilippe a Phrygia by birth, in manners more cruel then he that set him there:
And at Garizin Andronicus, and with them Menelaus, which was more grievous to the citizen then the other, and was despiteful against the Jews his citizens.
He sent also Apollonius a cruel prince, with an army of two and twenty thousand, whom he commanded to slay those that were toward man’s age, and to sell the women, and the younger sort.
So when he came to Jerusalem, he feigned peace, and kept him still until the holy day of Sabbath: and then finding the Jews keeping the fast, he commanded his men to take their weapon.
And so he slew all them that were gone forth to the show, and running through the city with his men armed, he murdered a great brother.
But Judas Maccabeus, being as it were the tenth, fled into the wilderness, and lived there in the mountains with his company among the beasts, and dwelling there, and eating grass, lest they should be partakers of the filthiness.
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