3 Maccabees 5:26-28

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²⁶ The rays of the sun were not yet shed abroad, and while the king was receiving his Friends, Hermon arrived and invited him to come out, indicating that what the king desired was ready for action. ²⁷ But he, on receiving the report and being struck by the unusual invitation to come out—since he had been completely overcome by incomprehension—inquired what the matter was for which this had been so zealously completed for him. ²⁸ This was the act of God who rules over all things, for he had implanted in the king’s mind a forgetfulness of the things he had previously devised.