3 Maccabees 7:2-4

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

² ‘We ourselves and our children are faring well, the great God guiding our affairs according to our desire. ³ Certain of our friends, frequently urging us with malicious intent, persuaded us to gather together the Jews of the kingdom in a body and to punish them with barbarous penalties as traitors; 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 towards all nations.