14. Even the priests were no longer devoted to the service of the altar, but they treated the temple with contempt. By neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to participate in the lawless wrestling spectacles in the arena as soon as the discus-throwing event was announced.
15. They ignored their ancestral honors and sought after Greek status symbols instead.
16. For this reason a dangerous situation engulfed them. Those same people to whom they were devoted and whose way of life they wished to imitate became their enemies and inflicted punishment on them.
17. To be ungodly in the face of the divine laws isn’t a light matter, as the following events would reveal.
18. Once when the king was present at the athletic games they held every five years in Tyre,
19. the evil Jason sent residents of Jerusalem who were now citizens of Antioch as his envoys, carrying three hundred silver drachmen for the sacrifice to Hercules. Because it was inappropriate, the envoys didn’t think it was right to use these funds for sacrifice. Instead, they applied the expense to something else.
20. So although Jason designated this sum for a sacrifice to Hercules, the envoys spent it on equipping warships.
21. After Menestheus’ son Apollonius was sent to Egypt for the coronation of Ptolemy Philometor as king, Antiochus thought about his own security because he had received a report that the Egyptian king was hostile toward his government. So after sailing to Joppa, he came to Jerusalem.
22. Jason received him magnificently, and the people of the city welcomed him with torches and shouts. Then Antiochus took his army to Phoenicia.
23. Three years later, Jason sent Menelaus (brother of the previously mentioned Simon) to bring funds to the king and settle the accounts of some urgent business matters.
24. When he was introduced to the king, he honored him with an air of authority and bought the high priesthood for himself, outbidding Jason by 17,100 pounds of silver.
25. When he received the king’s assent, he turned up holding no qualifications of the high priesthood but instead displaying the temper of a cruel tyrant and the wrath of a savage beast.
26. So Jason, who had replaced his brother in an unjust manner, was now displaced by another and forced to escape to Ammonitis.
27. Menelaus took authority but didn’t send any of the promised money to the king.
28. Sostratus the commander of the elevated fortress demanded settlement of the debt, for he had the responsibility of collecting payment. Finally, the two were summoned by the king.
29. Menelaus left behind as deputy of the high priesthood his own brother Lysimachus, and Sostratus left Crates, who was commander of the troops from Cyprus.
30. While these things were happening, the people of Tarsus and Mallus rebelled when their cities were given as a gift to Antiochis, the king’s secondary wife.