3 Maccabees 5:29-31

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

²⁹ Then Hermon and all the king’s Friends^[a] pointed out that the animals and the armed forces were ready, ‘O king, according to your eager purpose.’^{[b] 30} But at these words he was filled with an overpowering wrath, because by the providence of God his whole mind had been deranged concerning these matters; and with a threatening look he said, ³¹ ‘If your parents or children were present, I would have prepared them to be a rich feast for the savage animals instead of the Jews, who give me no ground for complaint and have exhibited to an extraordinary degree a full and firm loyalty to my ancestors.