A fierce battle ensued, and when matters were turning out rather in favor of Antiochus, Arsinoë went to the troops with wailing and tears, her locks all disheveled, and exhorted them to defend themselves and their children and wives bravely, promising to give them each two minas of gold if they won the battle.

Mothers and nurses abandoned even newborn children here and there, some in houses and some in the streets, and without a backward look they crowded together at the most high temple.

Therefore we have given orders that, as soon as this letter arrives, you are to send to us those who live among you, together with their wives and children, with insulting and harsh treatment and bound securely with iron fetters, to suffer the sure and shameful death that befits enemies.

But those who shelter any of the Jews, whether old people or children or even infants, will be tortured to death with the most hateful torments, together with their families.

“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.

they thought that this was their last moment of life, the end of their most miserable suspense, and giving way to lamentation and groans they kissed each other, embracing relatives and falling into one another’s arms—parents and children, mothers and daughters, and others with babies at their breasts who were drawing their last milk.

look upon the descendants of Abraham, O Father, upon the children of the consecrated Jacob, a people of your consecrated inheritance who are perishing as foreigners in a foreign land.

Release the children of the almighty and living God of heaven, who from the time of our ancestors until now has granted uninterrupted stability and glory to our government.”

“We ourselves and our children are faring well, the great God guiding our affairs according to our desire.

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,