3 Maccabees 2:20-22

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

²⁰ Speedily let your mercies overtake us, and put praises in the mouth of those who are downcast and broken in spirit, and give us peace.’

God’s Punishment of Ptolemy

²¹ Thereupon God, who oversees all things, the first Father of all, holy among the holy ones, having heard the lawful supplication, scourged him who had exalted himself in insolence and audacity. ²² He shook him on this side and that as a reed is shaken by the wind, so that he lay helpless on the ground and, besides being paralysed in his limbs, was unable even to speak, since he was smitten^[a] by a righteous judgement.