1 And not long after this the king sent forth an old man of Athens to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers, and not to live after the laws of God;
2 and also to pollute the sanctuary in Jerusalem, and to call it by the name of Jupiter Olympius, and to call the sanctuary in Gerizim by the name of Jupiter the Protector of strangers, even as they were that lived in the place.
3 But sore and utterly grievous was the visitation of this evil.
4 For the temple was filled with riot and revellings by the heathen, who dallied with harlots, and had to do with women within the sacred precincts, and moreover brought inside things that were not befitting;
5 and the place of sacrifice was filled with those abominable things which had been prohibited by the laws.
6 And a man could neither keep the Sabbath, nor observe the feasts of the fathers, nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew.