3 Maccabees 4 - Revised Standard Version (RSV)

The Jews Deported to Alexandria

4 In every place, then, where this decree arrived, a feast at public expense was arranged for the Gentiles with shouts and gladness, for the inveterate enmity which had long ago been in their minds was now made evident and outspoken. ² But among the Jews there was incessant mourning, lamentation, and tearful cries; everywhere their hearts were burning, and they groaned because of the unexpected destruction that had suddenly been decreed for them. ³ What district or city, or what habitable place at all, or what streets were not filled with mourning and wailing for them? ⁴ For with such a harsh and ruthless spirit were they being sent off, all together, by the generals in the several cities, that at the sight of their unusual punishments, even some of their enemies, perceiving the common object of pity before their eyes, reflected upon the uncertainty of life and shed tears at the most miserable expulsion of these people. ⁵ For a multitude of gray-headed old men, sluggish and bent with age, was being led away, forced to march at a swift pace by the violence with which they were driven in such a shameful manner. ⁶ And young women who had just entered the bridal chamber to share married life exchanged joy for wailing, their myrrh-perfumed hair sprinkled with ashes, and were carried away unveiled, all together raising a lament instead of a wedding song, as they were torn by the harsh treatment of the heathen.^{[a] 7} In bonds and in public view they were violently dragged along as far as the place of embarkation. ⁸ Their husbands, in the prime of youth, their necks encircled with ropes instead of garlands, spent the remaining days of their marriage festival in lamentations instead of good cheer and youthful revelry, seeing death immediately before them.^{[b] 9} They were brought on board like wild animals, driven under the constraint of iron bonds; some were fastened by the neck to the benches of the boats, others had their feet secured by unbreakable fetters, ¹⁰ and in addition they were confined under a solid deck, so that with their eyes in total darkness, they should undergo treatment befitting traitors during the whole voyage.

The Jews Imprisoned at Schedia

¹¹ When these men had been brought to the place called Schedia, and the voyage was concluded as the king had decreed, he commanded that they should be enclosed in the hippodrome which had been built with a monstrous perimeter wall in front of the city, and which was well suited to make them an obvious spectacle to all coming back into the city and to those from the city^[c] going out into the country, so that they could neither communicate with the king’s forces nor in any way claim to be inside the circuit of the city.^{[d] 12} And when this had happened, the king, hearing that the Jews’ compatriots from the city frequently went out in secret to lament bitterly the ignoble misfortune of their brothers, ¹³ ordered in his rage that these men be dealt with in precisely the same fashion as the others, not omitting any detail of their punishment. ¹⁴ The entire race was to be registered individually, not for the hard labor that has been briefly mentioned before, but to be tortured with the outrages that he had ordered, and at the end to be destroyed in the space of a single day. ¹⁵ The registration of these people was therefore conducted with bitter haste and zealous intentness from the rising of the sun till its setting, and though uncompleted it stopped after forty days.

¹⁶ The king was greatly and continually filled with joy, organizing feasts in honor of all his idols, with a mind alienated from truth and with a profane mouth, praising speechless things that are not able even to communicate or to come to one’s help, and uttering improper words against the supreme God.^{[e] 17} But after the previously mentioned interval of time the scribes declared to the king that they were no longer able to take the census of the Jews because of their innumerable multitude, ¹⁸ although most of them were still in the country, some still residing in their homes, and some at the place;^[f] the task was impossible for all the generals in Egypt. ¹⁹ After he had threatened them severely, charging that they had been bribed to contrive a means of escape, he was clearly convinced about the matter ²⁰ when they said and proved that both the paper^[g] and the pens they used for writing had already given out. ²¹ But this was an act of the invincible providence of him who was aiding the Jews from heaven.

Footnotes

1. 3 Maccabees 4:6 One ancient authority reads as though torn by heathen whelps
2. 3 Maccabees 4:8 Gk seeing Hades already lying at their feet
3. 3 Maccabees 4:11 Gk those of them
4. 3 Maccabees 4:11 Or claim protection of the walls; Greek obscure
5. 3 Maccabees 4:16 Gk the greatest God
6. 3 Maccabees 4:18 Other ancient authorities read on the way
7. 3 Maccabees 4:20 Or paper factory