3 Maccabees 5:22-24

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

²² But they did not so much employ the duration of the night in sleep as in devising all sorts of insults for those they thought to be doomed.

²³ Then, as soon as the cock had crowed in the early morning, Hermon, having equipped^[a] the animals, began to move them along in the great colonnade. ²⁴ The crowds of the city had been assembled for this most pitiful spectacle and they were eagerly waiting for daybreak.