19. Women, girded with sackcloth below their breasts, filled the streets. Young women secluded indoors all ran, some to the gates, some to the walls, others peered through the windows—
20. all of them with hands raised toward heaven, making supplication.
21. It was pitiful to see the populace prostrate everywhere and the high priest full of dread and anguish.
22. While they were imploring the almighty Lord to keep the deposits safe and secure for those who had placed them in trust,
23. Heliodorus went on with his plan.
24. But just as Heliodorus was arriving at the treasury with his bodyguards, the Lord of spirits and all authority produced an apparition so great that those who had been bold enough to accompany Heliodorus were panic-stricken at God’s power and fainted away in terror.
25. There appeared to them a richly caparisoned horse, mounted by a fearsome rider. Charging furiously, the horse attacked Heliodorus with its front hooves. The rider was seen wearing golden armor.
26. Then two other young men, remarkably strong, strikingly handsome, and splendidly attired, appeared before him. Standing on each side of him, they flogged him unceasingly, inflicting innumerable blows.
27. Suddenly he fell to the ground, enveloped in great darkness. His men picked him up and laid him on a stretcher.
28. They carried away helpless the man who a moment before had entered that treasury under arms with a great retinue and his whole bodyguard. They clearly recognized the sovereign power of God.
29. As Heliodorus lay speechless because of God’s action and deprived of any hope of recovery,