3 Maccabees 7:4-6

Common English Bible

⁴ They insisted that our government would never be stable until this was accomplished, due to the hostility that these people were said to have toward all the nations. ⁵ These friends also drove them along in chains, treating them harshly as slaves, or rather, as traitors. Without any investigation or trial they attempted to destroy them, displaying a cruelty more savage than the barbarians from Scythia. ⁶ Now we threatened them sternly for these actions, but we granted them their lives (but just barely!) in keeping with the patience that we show toward all people. Because we have learned that the heavenly God surely shields the Jews and fights alongside them as a father for his children,