95:5.5

“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph. The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive. At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house. When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son. Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works. But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.

Moreover, Josiah removed those who had familiar spirits, the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in Yahweh’s house. There was no king like him before him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him. Notwithstanding, Yahweh didn’t turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocation with which Manasseh had provoked him. Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight, as I have removed Israel; and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’”

The king, just like another Phalaris, a prey to thoughtlessness, made no account of the changes which his own mind had undergone, issuing in the deliverance of the Jews. He swore a fruitless oath, and determined immediately to send them to hades, crushed by the knees and feet of the elephants. He would also invade Judea, level its towns with fire and the sword, destroy that temple which the heathen might not enter, and prevent sacrifices ever after being offered up there. Joyfully his friends broke up, together with his kinsmen; and, trusting in his determination, arranged their forces in guard at the most convenient places of the city. The master of the elephants urged the animals into an almost maniacal state, drenched them with incense and wine, and decked them with frightful devices. About early morning, when the city was filled with an immense number of people at the hippodrome, he entered the palace and called the king to the business in hand. The king’s heart teemed with impious rage; and he rushed forth with the mass, along with the elephants. With unsoftened feelings and pitiless eyes, he longed to gaze at the hard and wretched doom of the previously mentioned Jews. But the Jews, when the elephants went out at the gate, followed by the armed force. When they saw the dust raised by the throng, and heard the loud cries of the crowd, thought that they had come to the last moment of their lives, to the end of what they had tremblingly expected. They gave way, therefore, to lamentations and moans. They kissed each other. Those nearest of kin to each other hung around one another’s necks—fathers hugging their sons and mothers their daughters. Other women held their infants to their breasts, which drew what seemed their last milk. Nevertheless, when they reflected upon the help previously granted them from heaven, they prostrated themselves with one accord, removed even the sucking children from the breasts, and sent up an exceedingly great cry asking the Lord of all power to reveal himself, and have mercy upon those who now lay at the gates of hades.