5. not so as to be an accuser of a citizen, but in view of his own consideration for the common good of the entire multitude.
6. For he saw that, without royal providence, it would be impossible to provide peace to events, nor would Simon ever cease from his foolishness.
7. But after the life of Seleucus expired, when Antiochus, who was called the illustrious, had assumed the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias, was ambitions for the high priesthood.
8. He went to the king, promising him three hundred and sixty talents of silver, and from other revenues eighty talents,
9. and beyond these, he promised also one hundred and fifty more, if he would be granted the authority to establish a sports arena, and a school for boys, and to enroll those who were at Jerusalem as Antiochians.
10. When the king had assented, and he had obtained the leadership, he immediately began to transfer his subjects to the rituals of the heathens.
11. And taking away those things that had been established by the kings, by reason of the humanitarianism of the Jews, through John, the father of Eupolemus, who formed a friendship and alliance with the Romans, he discharged the legitimate legislations, voiding the oaths of the citizens, and he sanctioned depraved customs.
12. For he even had the audacity to set up, below the very stronghold, a sports arena, and to place all of the best adolescent boys in brothels.
13. Now this was not the beginning, but a certain increase and progression of heathenism and foreign practices, due to the nefarious and unheard of wickedness of the impious non-priest Jason,
14. so much so that now the priests were not devoted to the concerns of services at the altar, but, despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to become participants of the wrestling school, and of its prohibited injustices, and of the training of the discus.
15. And, even holding the honors of their fathers to be nothing, they esteemed the glories of the Greeks as best.
16. For the sake of these, they held a dangerous competition, and were imitators of their practices, and so, in all things, they desired to be similar to those who had been their enemies and destroyers.
17. But acting impiously against the divine laws does not go unpunished, as these subsequent events will reveal.
18. But when the competition that was celebrated every fifth year was at Tyre, the king being present,