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The Jews Are Persecuted Because of Their Faith

Not long after that, the king sent an elderly Athenian[a] to force the Jews to abandon their religion and the customs of their ancestors. He was also to defile their Temple by dedicating it to the Olympian god Zeus.[b] The temple on Mount Gerizim was to be officially named

Temple of Zeus the God of Hospitality, as the people who lived there had requested.

The oppression was harsh and almost intolerable.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Maccabees 6:1 elderly Athenian; or an elder of Athens, or Athenaios the elder, or Geron an Athenian; some manuscripts have an elderly Antiochean; or an elder of Antioch.
  2. 2 Maccabees 6:2 zeus: The supreme god of the Greeks; Mount Olympus was thought to be his home.

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