3 Maccabees 1:16-18

Revised Standard Version

Jewish Resistance to Ptolemy

¹⁶ Then the priests in all their vestments prostrated themselves and entreated the supreme God^[a] to aid in the present situation and to avert the violence of this evil design, and they filled the temple with cries and tears; ¹⁷ and those who remained behind in the city were agitated and hurried out, supposing that something mysterious was occurring. ¹⁸ The virgins who had been enclosed in their chambers rushed out with their mothers, sprinkled their hair with dust,^[b] and filled the streets with groans and lamentations.