2 Maccabees 5:16-18

New Catholic Bible

¹⁶ The king laid his unclean hands on the sacred vessels, and with his profane hands he gathered up the votive offerings that other kings had made to enhance the glory and the honor of the holy place. ¹⁷ With an inflated opinion of himself, Antiochus failed to realize that the Lord had been angered for a time because of the sins committed by the inhabitants of the city, and that it was for this reason that he was disregarding the holy place. ¹⁸ If it had not been the case that they were involved in many sinful acts, Antiochus would have been flogged and checked in his presumptuous act as soon as he approached, just as had been the case with Heliodorus, whom King Seleucus had sent to inspect the treasury.