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;