3 Maccabees 4

1And everywhere this decree arrived, a public celebration was organized among the nations with shouting and joy, as though the hatred long before dancing in their minds against them were now being openly displayed with boldness.

2But for the Jews there was unspeakable grief and an all-lamenting cry with tears, while their heart, burning on every side with groanings, bewailed the destruction unexpectedly and suddenly decreed against them.

3What district, or city, or indeed what inhabited place at all, or what streets, were not filled with mourning and lamentation over them?

4For with the bitter cruelty of a merciless spirit they were being sent out together by the generals in each city, so that, beyond the outrageous punishments, even some of their enemies, seeing the common pity before their eyes and considering the uncertain ruin of their life, were weeping over their wretched deportation.

5For an old man was being led along, full of gray hair, bent over by the weakness in his feet that comes with age, driven by the violent force of being thrown down, making use of a swift march without any regard for all dignity.

6And the young women who had just entered the bridal chamber for the sharing of life in marriage, taking up lamentation instead of joy, and with their perfume-drenched hair smeared with dust, were being led away unveiled, and with one accord raised a dirge instead of wedding songs, as though torn apart by abuse from foreigners.

7And as prisoners they were dragged by force in public until their embarkation onto the ship.

8And their relatives, with nooses wrapped around their necks instead of garlands, though in the full bloom of youth, spent the remaining days of their weddings in mourning instead of feasting and youthful ease, already seeing Hades lying at their feet.

9And they were brought down, driven like beasts by the compulsion of iron chains: some with their necks fastened to the yokes of the ships, and others with their feet secured in unbreakable fetters,

10and with the dense planking above arranged so that, their eyes being darkened on every side, they might receive a transport fit for plotters throughout the whole voyage.

11When they had been brought down to the place called Schedia, and the voyage had been completed, as had been decreed by the king, he ordered them to encamp in the hippodrome before the city, an open area excellently suited for making an example of them, lying in full view of all who were traveling down into the city and of those being sent out from there into the country on a journey, so that they might neither associate with his forces nor, in general, be deemed worthy of an enclosure.

12And when this happened, having heard that his fellow countrymen from the city were secretly going out and more frequently slipping away because of the misery of their brothers,

13Enraged, he ordered that these men too be treated in exactly the same way as those others, carefully, falling short in no way of their punishment.

14and that the whole nation should be registered by name, not for the previously indicated brief service according to their work, but, by being tortured with the ordered cruelties, to be utterly destroyed in the course of a single day.

15So the registration of these people was carried out with bitter urgency and zealous exertion, from the rising of the sun to its setting, reaching no completion for forty days.

16And the king, greatly and continually filled with joy, was arranging banquets before all the idols, with a mind far removed from the truth and with a profane mouth, praising deaf things that were unable to speak or help them, but speaking improper things against God.

17But after the previously mentioned interval of time, the scribes reported to the king that it was no longer possible to carry out the registration of the Jews because of their countless multitude.

18even though most were still in the country—some still assembled in their houses, and others also in the place—since the situation had become impossible for all the generals over Egypt.

19But they were persuaded against them all the more harshly, on the ground that they had been bribed as part of a scheme for escape, and it clearly happened that he was convinced of this.

20asserting with proof that even the papyrus and the writing reeds they had been using had already run out.

21But this was the invincible working of the providence from heaven of the one helping the Jews.