World English Bible

2 Maccabees 5:19-27 World English Bible (WEB)

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.

27. But Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, with nine others or thereabout, withdrew himself, and with his company kept himself alive in the mountains after the manner of wild beasts; and they continued feeding on such poor herbs as grew there, that they might not be partakers of the threatened pollution.