1It also happened that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king to partake of unlawful pork, while being tortured with whips and scourges.
2One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, “What are you about to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
3The king, becoming enraged, ordered pans and cauldrons to be heated red-hot.
4When these were immediately heated red-hot, he ordered that their spokesman’s tongue be cut out, that he be scalped, and that his hands and feet be cut off, while the other brothers and their mother looked on.
5When he was completely crippled, the king ordered him to be brought to the fire, still breathing, and to be fried in the pan. As the steam from the pan spread widely, they and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying this:
6“The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, just as Moses made clear in the song that testifies against them to their face, when he said, ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.’”
7When the first had died in this way, they led the second to their mockery. Tearing off the skin of his head with the hair, they asked, “Will you eat, before your body is punished limb by limb?”
8But he answered in his ancestral tongue, “No!” Therefore he also received the next sequence of torture, just as the first had.
9And at his last breath, he said, “You, accursed fiend, may release us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us, who have died for his laws, to an everlasting renewal of life.”
10After him, the third was brought to be mocked. When his tongue was demanded, he quickly stuck it out and courageously stretched forth his hands.
11And he said nobly, “I received these from heaven, and for the sake of his laws I disregard them, and from him I hope to receive them back again.”
12As a result, the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man’s spirit, seeing how he counted his agonies as nothing.
13When this one had also died, they tormented the fourth in the same way.
14And when he was about to die, he said this: “It is better to die at the hands of men while cherishing the hope from God that we will be raised again by him. But for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”
15Next, they brought the fifth and began to torture him.
16But he looked at the king and said, “Though you are mortal, you have authority among men to do as you please. But do not think that our people have been forsaken by God.”
17But you, just wait, and you will see his great power and how he will torture you and your descendants.
18After him, they brought the sixth, and as he was about to die, he said, “Do not be deceived for nothing. We are suffering these things because of ourselves, for we have sinned against our own God. Things worthy of amazement have happened.”
19But do not suppose that you will go unpunished for having attempted to fight against God.”
20But the mother was especially admirable and worthy of noble memory. Seeing her seven sons perish in the course of a single day, she bore it with courage because of her hope in the Lord.
21She encouraged each one of them in her ancestral tongue. Filled with noble resolve, she stirred her woman’s heart with a man’s courage, saying to them:
22“I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who gave you breath and life, nor I who arranged the elements of each of you.”
23“Therefore the Creator of the world, who formed the human race and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his laws.”
24Now Antiochus, thinking he was being treated with contempt and suspecting the reproach in her voice, appealed to the youngest, who was still alive. He did so not only with words but also with oaths, assuring him that he would make him rich and count him blessed if he would turn from the ways of his ancestors, and that he would make him his Friend and entrust him with high office.
25When the young man paid no attention, the king summoned his mother and urged her to advise the boy to save himself.
26After he had urged her at length, she agreed to persuade her son.
27Leaning over him, she mocked the cruel tyrant and spoke in her ancestral tongue: “My son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, and reared and brought you to this age and provided for you.”
28“I ask you, my child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see everything that is in them, and to recognize that God made them out of things that did not exist; and in the same way the human race came into being.”
29“Do not fear this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you back again along with your brothers.”
30While she was still speaking, the young man said, “What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the Law that was given to our ancestors through Moses.”
31But you, having become the inventor of every kind of evil against the Hebrews, will by no means escape the hands of God.
32For we are suffering on account of our own sins.
33But if our living Lord has been angered for a short time for the sake of rebuke and discipline, he will again be reconciled to his own servants.
34But you, O unholy one and most defiled of all men, do not be vainly puffed up, raging with uncertain hopes, for you have raised your hand against the heavenly servants.
35For you have not yet escaped the judgment of the all-powerful, all-seeing God.
36For our brothers, after enduring a brief pain, have fallen under God’s covenant of everlasting life; but you, by the judgment of God, will pay the just penalties for your arrogance.
37But I, just as my brothers, give up both body and fortune for the laws of our fathers, calling upon God to become merciful to our nation soon, and to make you confess, with torments and scourges, that he alone is God.
38and that in me and my brothers he may halt the wrath of the Almighty, which has been justly brought upon our whole nation.
39But the king, becoming enraged, treated this one more cruelly than the others, taking his mockery bitterly.
40And so this one also died undefiled, trusting completely in the Lord.
41Last of all, after her sons, the mother died.
42So then, let this be a sufficient account of the forced sacrificial meals and the excessive tortures.
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