1. When the holy city was living in harmony, and people observed the laws rigorously because of Onias the high priest, who was devoted to God and hated evil,
2. the kings used to honor the place and glorify the temple by sending the best gifts.
3. Seleucus the king of Asia even supplied all expenses for the sacrificial service from his own revenues.
4. But a certain Simon from the tribe of Benjamin, who had been appointed administrator of the temple, had a difference of opinion with the high priest about the management of the city market.
5. Since he wasn’t able to overcome Onias, he went to Thraseas’ son Apollonius, who was governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia at that time.
6. Simon told him that the treasury in Jerusalem was filled with untold riches and that it was full of uncounted cash, which didn’t belong to the accounts for the sacrifices, but potentially fell under the king’s authority.
7. Apollonius met with the king and told him about the funds.The king chose his chief administrator Heliodorus and sent him with orders to confiscate the funds in question.
8. Heliodorus immediately made the journey, supposedly to inspect the cities of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia but actually to put the king’s plan into effect.
9. When he arrived in Jerusalem and was received in a friendly manner by the high priest of the city, he revealed the information that had been reported and stated plainly why he had come. Then he asked whether these things were true.
10. The high priest informed him that these were the deposits of widows and orphans,
11. and also some deposits of Hyrcanus the Tobiad, an exceedingly prominent man. He also said that there were only 22,800 pounds of silver and 11,400 pounds of gold, and that the ungodly Simon had given a false report.
12. It was wholly unthinkable, he added, to commit such an injustice against those who trusted in the holiness of the place and in the dignity and sacredness of the temple that is honored throughout the whole world.
13. But Heliodorus, because of the royal commands, was firm that in any case the king could take these funds.
14. So he set a date and proceeded to inspect these funds. This caused great agony throughout the whole city.
15. But the priests threw themselves down before the altar in their priestly robes and called to heaven to the one who had given the laws about such deposits, that he should keep the deposits safe.
16. Anyone seeing the outward appearance of the high priest would have been heartbroken, because his expression and changed color revealed his inner anguish.