2 Maccabees 5, verse 1. Around this time, Antiochus set out for his second assault into Egypt. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 2. So it came about throughout the entire city of Jerusalem that for almost forty days there were apparitions of horsemen dressed in apparel interwoven with gold and moving quickly through the air, in companies fully armed with spears and drawn swords— 2 Maccabees 5, verse 3. troops of horsemen set in battle array and making attacks and counterattacks on this side and on that, with the movement of shields and a multitude of spears, and the shooting of arrows, and the brightness of gold ornaments, and breastplates of all sorts. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 4. Therefore all the men prayed that the appearance might be for the good.
Jason's Assault on Jerusalem
2 Maccabees 5, verse 5. But when a false report was circulated that Antiochus was dead, Jason took no less than a thousand men and suddenly made an assault upon the city. When the men on the wall were driven off and the city was finally taken, Menelaus was banished into the citadel. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 6. But Jason kept slaughtering his own fellow citizens without mercy, not comprehending that success against his kinsmen was his very unlucky day, for he imagined that he was winning trophies over his enemies rather than over people of the same race. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 7. Yet he did not get the upper hand of the government, but in the end gained disgrace from his plot, and took refuge again among the Ammonites. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 8. In the end, his life reached an ugly conclusion. He was accused before Aretas the ruler of the Arabs, but fled from city to city. He was pursued by all, detested as a rebel against the laws, and abhorred as an executioner of his homeland and fellow citizens. Finally he was cast ashore in Egypt. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 9. Thus he who so often banished many from their homelands himself perished in a strange land; for he had set sail to the Lacedaimonians to obtain protection because of their kinship. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 10. So he who cast out many without a burial was unmourned, for he had no funeral of his own, nor did he share a place in the tomb of his fathers.
Antiochus Kills and Desecrates
2 Maccabees 5, verse 11. When the news of what happened reached King Antiochus, he took it to mean that Judea was in revolt. So inwardly he became like a wild beast, left Egypt, and took the city in war. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 12. He commanded his soldiers to cut down without mercy whomever they met and to slaughter those who went into their houses. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 13. So there was a killing of young and old, a killing of boys, women, and children, and a slaughtering of virgins and infants. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 14. Eighty thousand were destroyed in a total of three days, forty thousand in hand-to-hand combat; and no fewer were sold into slavery than were slain. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 15. Not satisfied with these things, Antiochus dared to enter the most holy temple in all the earth. He had as his guide Menelaus, who had become a traitor both to the laws and to his country. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 16. With defiled hands he took the holy vessels, and with profane hands he pulled down the things dedicated by other kings to increase the glory and honor of the place. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 17. Antiochus was haughty, but was unaware that, because of the sins of those who lived in the city, the Lord was momentarily angered, and therefore was withholding grace as a temporary punishment of the place. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 18. However, if the people of the city had not been involved in so many sins, this man would have been scourged and brought to ruin as soon as he had come, as was Heliodorus, whom Seleucus the king had sent to inspect the treasury. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 19. But the Lord did not choose the nation because of the place, but the place because of the nation. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 20. Therefore the place also itself shared in the misfortunes that befell the nation, and later had a share in its benefits; and what was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty was restored again in all its glory by the reconciliation of the great Lord. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 21. At any rate, Antiochus carried off eighteen hundred talents from the temple and hurried away to Antioch. In his arrogance he thought he could sail on the land and walk on the sea because of the lifting up of his heart. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 22. But he also left governors to afflict the people. In Jerusalem he left Philip, a Phrygian by race, more barbarous in character than the one who appointed him; 2 Maccabees 5, verse 23. and in Gerizim, Andronicus. In addition to these he left Menelaus, who lorded it over his fellow citizens worse than did the others, having a hateful disposition toward the Jewish citizens. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 24. Antiochus sent Apollonius, commander of the Mysians, with an army of twenty-two thousand men, with orders to slaughter all the grown men and to sell the women and young boys as slaves. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 25. After he arrived in Jerusalem and pretended to be peace-loving, this man waited until the holy day of the Sabbath; then, finding the Jews not at work, he commanded his men to take up arms. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 26. He put to the sword all those who came out to see them; then he rushed into the city with his armed men and killed great numbers of people. 2 Maccabees 5, verse 27. But Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, withdrew into the desert so as not to share in the defilement. He kept himself and those with him alive in the mountains as do wild animals, by continually eating food that grew wild.