World English Bible

2 Maccabees 5:13-26 World English Bible (WEB)

13. and there was killing of young and old, making away of boys, women, and children, slaying of virgins and infants.

14. And in all the three days of the slaughter there were destroyed fourscore thousand, whereof forty thousand were slain in close combat, and no fewer were sold than slain.

15. But not content with this he presumed to enter into the most holy temple of all the earth, having Menelaus for his guide (him that had proved himself a traitor both to the laws and to his country),

16. even taking the sacred vessels with his polluted hands, and dragging down with his profane hands the offerings that had been dedicated by other kings to the augmentation and glory and honor of the place.

17. And Antiochus was lifted up in mind, not seeing that because of the sins of them that lived in the city the Sovereign Lord had been provoked to anger a little while, and therefore his eye was then turned away from the place.

18. But had it not so been that they were already holden by many sins, this man, even as Heliodorus who was sent by Seleucus the king to view the treasury, would, so soon as he pressed forward, have been scourged and turned back from his daring deed.

19. Howbeit the Lord did not choose the nation for the place’s sake, but the place for the nation’s sake.

20. Wherefore also the place itself, having partaken in the calamities that befell the nation, did afterward share in its benefits; and the place which was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty was, at the reconciliation of the great Sovereign, restored again with all glory.

21. As for Antiochus, when he had carried away out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he departed in all haste to Antioch, weening in his arrogancy to make the land navigable and the sea passable by foot, because his heart was lifted up.

22. And moreover he left governors to afflict the race: at Jerusalem, Philip, by race a Phrygian, and in character more barbarous than him that set him there;

23. and at Gerizim, Andronicus; and besides these, Menelaus, who worse than all the rest exalted himself against his fellow-citizens. And having a malicious mind toward the Jews whom he had made his citizens,

24. he sent that lord of pollutions Apollonius with an army of two and twenty thousand, commanding him to kill all those that were of full age, and to sell the women and the younger men.

25. And he coming to Jerusalem, and playing the man of peace, waited till the holy day of the Sabbath, and finding the Jews at rest from work, he commanded his men to parade in arms.

26. And he put to the sword all them that came forth to the spectacle; and running into the city with the armed men he killed great multitudes.