4 Maccabees 4:21-23

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²¹ The divine justice was angered by these acts and caused Antiochus himself to make war on them.^{(A) 22} For when he was warring against Ptolemy in Egypt, he heard that a rumor of his death had spread and that the people of Jerusalem had rejoiced greatly. He speedily marched against them,^{(B) 23} and after he had ravaged them he issued a decree that if any of them were found observing the ancestral law they should die.^(C)