Old Testament

New Testament

2 Maccabees 13:1-7 Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV)

1. In the one hundred and forty-ninth year, Judas realized that Antiochus Eupator was coming with a multitude against Judea.

2. And with him was Lysias, the procurator, who was in charge of the government, having with him one hundred and ten thousand foot solders, five thousand horsemen, and twenty-two elephants, and three hundred swift chariots with curved blades.

3. Menelaus also joined himself to them, and with many lies he pleaded with Antiochus, not for the welfare of his country, but hoping that he would be appointed as first ruler.

4. But the King of kings awakened the mind of Antiochus against the sinner. And when Lysias was suggesting this to be the cause of all the evils, he ordered (as is the custom with them) that he should be apprehended and killed in the same place.

5. Now there was, in the same place, a tower of fifty cubits, having a pile of ashes on every side. This had a lookout over a precipice.

6. From there, he ordered this sacrilegious one to be thrown down into the ashes, with all propelling him into the afterlife.

7. And by such a law, it turned out that the betrayer of the law, Menelaus, died, not having so much as a burial in the earth.

Read complete chapter 2 Maccabees 13