3 Maccabees 5

1 Then, filled with heavy anger and bile and in every way not to be moved, the king called for Hermon, the man in charge of the elephants, 2 and ordered him, against the coming day, to drug all the elephants — five hundred of them — with generous handfuls of frankincense and a great deal of unmixed wine, and, when they had been made savage by the lavish supply of the drink, to bring them in to meet the Jews at their death. [a] 3 Having given these orders he turned to his feasting, and gathered those of his friends and of the army who hated the Jews most.

4 And Hermon, the master of the elephants, carried out the order exactly. 5 The men assigned to the work went out toward evening and bound the hands of the wretched people, and contrived whatever else would hold them fast through the night, thinking that the whole race would meet the end of its ruin together.

6 To the nations the Jews seemed stripped of every shelter, because of the chains that hemmed them in on every side; 7 but with a cry that could not be stilled they all called out, weeping, on the Almighty Lord, who is sovereign over every power, their merciful God and Father, and begged him [b] 8 to turn back the unholy plan against them and to rescue them, with a great appearing, from the death that stood ready at their feet. 9 So their plea went up earnestly to heaven.

10 Hermon had drugged the merciless elephants, filled with the great supply of wine and gorged with frankincense, and at dawn he came to the court to report on them to the king. 11 But the one who gives freely to all, to whomever he wills — he who lays on men by night and by day that good thing made at the beginning of time — sent a portion of sleep upon the king, 12 and by the working of the Master he was held fast in a sweet, deep sleep, thrown far off his purpose against all custom and cheated badly of the reckoning he had called unchangeable. [c] 13 And the Jews, having got past the hour that had been marked out, praised their holy God, and asked him again — the one who is easily reconciled — to show the strength of his mighty hand to the arrogant nations.

14 It was nearly the middle of the tenth hour when the man in charge of the invitations, seeing the guests all gathered, came and nudged the king. 15 He woke him with difficulty and pointed out that the hour of the banquet was already slipping by, and gave him his account of the matter. 16 The king took it in, turned to his drinking, and ordered those who had come to the banquet to take their places opposite him. 17 When that was done he urged them to give themselves to the feast, and, keeping it up a long while, to set this present part of the banquet down as a time for gladness.

18 As the talk ran on, the king called for Hermon and asked him, with a bitter threat, why the Jews had been left alive through the day now ending. 19 Hermon showed him that he had carried the order through while it was still night, and the friends bore him out. 20 Then the king, whose savagery was worse than Phalaris’s, said that they owed thanks to that day’s sleep. “And with no putting off, get the elephants ready in the same way for tomorrow, for the ruin of these outlaw Jews.” [d]

21 When the king had spoken, everyone there gladly agreed with one voice, and each went off to his own house. 22 They spent the hours of the night not so much in sleep as in devising every kind of mockery for those they took to be wretched.

23 The cock had just crowed at dawn, and Hermon, having armed the animals, was moving them about in the great colonnade. 24 The crowds of the city had gathered for that most pitiable spectacle, waiting eagerly for the morning. 25 The Jews, with their souls being dragged out of them moment by moment, stretched out their hands toward heaven with an entreaty full of tears, in mournful songs, and begged the greatest God to help them again, and quickly.

26 The sun’s rays were not yet scattered abroad, and the king was waiting for his friends, when Hermon came and stood by him and called him out, pointing out that what the king was so eager for was standing ready. 27 The king received him, and was astonished at this lawbreaking going out; and, held fast on every side by a blank of mind, he asked what the business was that had been carried through for him in such haste. 28 This was the working of God, the Master of all things, who had put into his mind forgetfulness of everything he had been contriving.

29 Hermon, and all the friends with him, pointed it out: “The animals and the forces are ready, king, just as you were so set on having them.” [e] 30 At these words the king filled up with heavy bile — for by God’s provident care in this matter his whole mind had been scattered — and staring at Hermon he said with a threat, 31 “If your parents were here, or children of your own, I would have made them a rich feast for these wild animals instead of the Jews, who have done me no wrong and who have shown me and my forefathers a loyalty whole and unshaken beyond anyone’s. 32 In fact, if it were not for the affection of our having been brought up together, and for your usefulness, you would have lost your life instead of theirs.” [f]

33 So Hermon bore a threat he had not looked for and that put him in danger, and he shrank in his look and in his face. 34 The friends slipped away one by one with gloomy faces and dismissed the assembled crowds, each to his own business. 35 And when the Jews heard what had come from the king, they praised the God who appears — the Lord, the King of kings — for having obtained this help of his as well. [g]

36 The king set the banquet up again on the same lines, and urged the whole company to turn to gladness. 37 He called for Hermon and said to him with a threat, “How many times must I give you orders about these same people, you miserable wretch? 38 Arm the elephants once again, even now, for tomorrow, for the ruin of the Jews.”

39 The kinsmen reclining with him wondered at his unsteady mind and put this to him: 40 “How long, king, will you test us as though we had no sense? This is the third time you have ordered them wiped out, and again, when the thing is under way, you change and undo what you had decided. 41 Because of it the city is in an uproar from waiting; it swarms with knots of men, and again and again it is close to being plundered.”

42 At this the king — a Phalaris in everything — filled up with unreason. He counted as nothing the changes of heart that had come over him for the watching over of the Jews, and bound himself with a firm oath, one that could never be carried out: that he would send these people to Hades without delay, mangled by the knees and feet of the animals, [h] 43 and that he would march on Judea and quickly level it with fire and spear, and burn down that sanctuary of theirs which we may not enter, and quickly leave it empty of those who offer sacrifices there, for all time. [i]

44 Then the friends and kinsmen broke up in high delight, and trusting his word they posted the troops at the best-placed points of the city to keep guard. 45 The master of the elephants had brought the animals into what one might almost call a state of madness, with the sweetest-smelling drinks of wine laced with frankincense, and had fitted them out with fearful gear. 46 About dawn, when the city was already packed with countless crowds around the hippodrome, he came into the court and urged the king on to the business in hand. 47 The king filled his godless mind with heavy anger and rushed out with the whole weight of it, along with the animals, wanting to look with an unwounded heart and with his own eyes on the painful and wretched destruction of the people just spoken of.

48 But when the elephants were going out through the gate, with the armed force following and the crowd marching behind, and the Jews saw the dust and heard the deep-sounding roar, 49 they thought this was the last turn of their lives, the end of the most wretched waiting. They gave themselves to pity and wailing, and kissed one another; relatives threw their arms around one another and fell on each other’s necks, parents on their children and mothers on their daughters; and other women held newborn babies at the breast, drawing what was their last milk. [j]

50 And yet, taking in together the helps that had come to them out of heaven before, they flung themselves face down all together, and took the infants from the breasts, 51 and cried out with a very loud voice, entreating the Sovereign over all power to appear and take pity on them, standing as they now stood at the gates of Hades. [k]