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The Jews Are Persecuted Because of Their Faith

Not long after that, the king sent an elderly Athenian[a] to force the Jews to abandon their religion and the customs of their ancestors. He was also to defile their Temple by dedicating it to the Olympian god Zeus.[b] The temple on Mount Gerizim was to be officially named

Temple of Zeus the God of Hospitality, as the people who lived there had requested.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Maccabees 6:1 elderly Athenian; or an elder of Athens, or Athenaios the elder, or Geron an Athenian; some manuscripts have an elderly Antiochean; or an elder of Antioch.
  2. 2 Maccabees 6:2 zeus: The supreme god of the Greeks; Mount Olympus was thought to be his home.

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