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(A)Ptolemy promptly selected Nicanor, son of Patroclus, one of the Chief Friends, and sent him at the head of at least twenty thousand armed men of various nations to wipe out the entire Jewish nation. With him he associated Gorgias, a general, experienced in the art of war.(B) 10 Nicanor planned to raise the two thousand talents of tribute owed by the king to the Romans[a] by selling captured Jews into slavery. 11 So he immediately sent word to the coastal cities, inviting them to buy Jewish slaves and promising to deliver ninety slaves for a talent[b]—little anticipating the punishment that was to fall upon him from the Almighty.

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Footnotes

  1. 8:10 Tribute owed by the king to the Romans: the payment imposed on Antiochus III in 188 B.C. by the treaty of Apamea.
  2. 8:11 Ninety slaves for a talent: a low price for so many slaves, thus expressing the opponents’ contempt for the Jews.