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,
19 the villainous Jason sent sinful men from Jerusalem, carrying three hundred didrachmas of silver for the sacrifice of Hercules. But those who transported it asked that it might not be paid out for the sacrifices, because it was not needed, but might be used for other expenses.
20 So, even though this was offered by him who sent it for the sacrifice of Hercules, it was instead given over to the manufacture of Greek warships, because of those presenting it.