1. The Simon mentioned above as the informer about the funds against his own country slandered Onias as the one who incited Heliodorus and instigated the whole miserable affair.
2. He dared to brand as a schemer against the government the man who was the benefactor of the city, the protector of his compatriots, and a zealous defender of the laws.
3. When Simon’s hostility reached such a pitch that murders were being committed by one of his henchmen,
4. Onias saw that the opposition was serious and that Apollonius, son of Menestheus, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, was abetting Simon’s wickedness.
5. So he had recourse to the king, not as an accuser of his compatriots, but as one looking to the general and particular good of all the people.
6. He saw that without royal attention it would be impossible to have a peaceful government, and that Simon would not desist from his folly.
7. But Seleucus died, and when Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes succeeded him on the throne, Onias’ brother Jason obtained the high priesthood by corrupt means:
8. in an interview, he promised the king three hundred and sixty talents of silver, as well as eighty talents from another source of income.
9. Besides this he would undertake to pay a hundred and fifty more, if he was given authority to establish a gymnasium and a youth center for it and to enroll Jerusalemites as citizens of Antioch.
10. When Jason received the king’s approval and came into office, he immediately initiated his compatriots into the Greek way of life.
11. He set aside the royal concessions granted to the Jews through the mediation of John, father of Eupolemus (that Eupolemus who would later go on an embassy to the Romans to establish friendship and alliance with them); he set aside the lawful practices and introduced customs contrary to the law.
12. With perverse delight he established a gymnasium at the very foot of the citadel, where he induced the noblest young men to wear the Greek hat.
13. The craze for Hellenism and the adoption of foreign customs reached such a pitch, through the outrageous wickedness of Jason, the renegade and would-be high priest,
14. that the priests no longer cared about the service of the altar. Disdaining the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened, at the signal for the games, to take part in the unlawful exercises at the arena.
15. What their ancestors had regarded as honors they despised; what the Greeks esteemed as glory they prized highly.
16. For this reason they found themselves in serious trouble: the very people whose manner of life they emulated, and whom they desired to imitate in everything, became their enemies and oppressors.