2 Maccabees 3:18-20

Good News Translation

¹⁸ People ran from their houses to join together in prayer that the Temple might not be defiled. ¹⁹ Women, wearing nothing but skirts of sackcloth, crowded the streets. Young girls whose parents had never allowed them to be seen in public ran to the gates or to the walls of the city, or just stared out of their windows. ²⁰ But wherever they went, they lifted their hands to God in prayer.