3 Maccabees 7:4-6

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴ for they declared that our government would never be firmly established until this was accomplished because of the ill-will that these people had toward all nations. ⁵ They also led them out with harsh treatment as slaves, or rather as traitors, and, girding themselves with a cruelty more savage than that of Scythian custom, they tried without any inquiry or examination to put them to death.^{(A) 6} But we very severely threatened them for these acts, and in accordance with the clemency that we have toward all people we barely spared their lives. Since we have come to realize that the God of heaven surely defends the Jews, always taking their part as a father does for his children,^(B)