1And everywhere this decree arrived, a public feasting was established for the Gentiles with shouting and joy, as the enmity long hardened in their minds was now being openly displayed.
2But for the Jews there was unspeakable grief and a tearful cry of universal lamentation, their hearts inflamed on all sides with groans, as they lamented the unexpected and sudden destruction decreed against them.
3What district or city, or what inhabited place at all, or what streets were not filled with breast-beating and wailing for them?
4For they were being sent away with one accord by the city commanders with such a bitter and merciless spirit that, at these extraordinary punishments, even some of their enemies, seeing common pity before their eyes and considering the uncertain end of life, wept at their most miserable expulsion.
5For an old man, full of gray hair, was being led away, his bent feet weighed down with the sluggishness of old age, driven by a violent impulse that made him stumble, and forced without any respect to a swift pace.
6And young women who had just entered the bridal chamber for the partnership of life exchanged delight for wailing; they soiled their perfume-drenched hair with dust and, being led away unveiled, began a lament with one accord instead of a wedding hymn, as if torn apart by the whelps of foreign nations.
7And as prisoners, they were dragged with violence in public all the way to their embarkation on the ship.
8And their husbands, in the prime of their youth, had nooses entwined around their necks instead of garlands; and instead of feasting and youthful ease, they spent the remaining days of their wedding festivities in laments, seeing Hades already lying at their feet.
9They were brought down, led like beasts in iron-bound constraints: some with their necks nailed to the thwarts of the ships, others with their feet secured in unbreakable shackles,
10and furthermore, with thick planking laid above them, so that with their eyes darkened on all sides, they might receive the treatment of traitors during the entire voyage.
11When these people had been brought to the place called Schedia and the voyage was completed, just as the king had decreed, he ordered them to be encamped in the hippodrome before the city. It had an immense perimeter and was very well-suited for making a public example of them to all who were entering the city and to those from the city who were traveling out into the country, so that they might neither have contact with his forces nor be deemed worthy of any enclosure at all.
12When this was done, the king heard that their fellow countrymen from the city were frequently going out in secret to lament the inglorious suffering of their brothers,
13and enraged, he ordered that these people also be treated in exactly the same way as the others, not falling short in any respect of their punishment.
14The entire race was to be registered by name—not for the previously and briefly mentioned forced labor, but to be destroyed in the end by the commanded tortures, all within a single day.
15So their registration took place with bitter haste and zealous diligence, from sunrise to sunset, but it remained unfinished for forty days.
16And the king, greatly and continually filled with joy, was holding drinking parties before all the idols. With a mind far removed from the truth and with a profane mouth, he praised things that were deaf and unable to speak or to help, and spoke improper things against God.
17But after the aforementioned period of time, the scribes reported to the king that they were no longer able to carry out the registration of the Jews because of their immeasurable number.
18This was although the majority were still in the country—some still remaining in their homes, and others at the registration site—making the task impossible for all the commanders in Egypt.
19But when he threatened them more harshly, accusing them of having been bribed to devise a means for the Jews’ escape, he was clearly convinced of the matter
20when they said with proof that the supply of paper and the writing pens they were using had already run out.
21But this was the working of the unconquerable providence of the one from heaven who helps the Jews.
Open in the interactive reader →