15
But this was not enough; he presumed also to enter into the temple, the most holy in all the world, Menelaus, that traitor to the laws, and to his country, being his guide.
16
And taking in his wicked hands the holy vessels, which were given by other kings and cities, for the ornament and the glory of the place, he unworthily handled and profaned them.
17
Thus Antiochus going astray in mind, did not consider that God was angry for a while, because of the sins of the habitants of the city: and therefore contempt had happened to the place:
18
Otherwise had they not been involved in many sins, as Heliodorus, who was sent by king Seleucus to rob treasury, so this man also, as soon as had come, had been forthwith scourged, and put back from his presumption.
19
But God did not choose the people for the place's sake, but the place for the people's sake.
20
And therefore the place also itself was made partaker of the evils of the people: but afterward shall communicate in the good things thereof, and as it was forsaken in the wrath of almighty God, shall be exalted again with great glory, when the great Lord shall be reconciled.
21
So when Antiochus had taken away out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he went back in all haste to Antioch, thinking through pride, that he might now make the land navigable, and the sea passable on foot: such was the haughtiness of his mind.
22
He left also governors to afflict the people: at Jerusalem, Philip, a Phrygian by birth, but in manners more barbarous than he that set him there:
23
And in Gazarim, Andronicus and Menelaus, who bore a more heavy hand upon the citizens than the rest.
24
And whereas he was set against the Jews, he sent that hateful prince Apollonius with an army of two and twenty thousand men, commanding him to kill all that were of perfect age, and to sell the women and the younger sort.
25
Who when he was come to Jerusalem, pretending peace, rested till the holy day of the sabbath: and then the Jews keeping holiday, he commanded his men to take arms.