4 Maccabees 11

1. 1When he had died, disfigured in his torments, the fifth leaped forward, and said,
2. 2“I don’t intend, O tyrant, to get excused from the torment which is on behalf of virtue.
3. 3But I have come of my own accord, that by my death you may owe heavenly vengeance and punishment for more crimes.
4. 4O you hater of virtue and of men, what have we done that you thus revel in our blood?
5. 5Does it seem evil to you that we worship the Founder of all things, and live according to his surpassing law?
6. 6But this is worthy of honors, not torments,
7. 7if you had been capable of the higher feelings of men, and possessed the hope of salvation from God.
8. 8Behold now, being alien from God, you make war against those who are religious toward God.”
9. 9As he said this, the spearbearers bound him and drew him to the rack,
10. 10to which binding him at his knees, and fastening them with iron fetters, they bent down his loins upon the wedge of the wheel; and his body was then dismembered, scorpion-fashion.
11. 11With his breath thus confined, and his body strangled, he said,
12. 12“A great favor you bestow upon us, O tyrant, by enabling us to manifest our adherence to the law by means of nobler sufferings.”
13. 13He also being dead, the sixth, quite a youth, was brought out. On the tyrant asking him whether he would eat and be delivered, he said,
14. 14“I am indeed younger than my brothers, but in understanding I am as old.
15. 15I was born and reared to the same end. We are bound to die also on behalf of the same cause.
16. 16So if you think it is proper to torment us for not eating the unclean, then torment!”
17. 17As he said this, they brought him to the wheel.
18. 18Extended upon this, with limbs racked and dislocated, he was gradually roasted from beneath.
19. 19Having heated sharp spits, they stabbed them into his back; and having pierced his sides, they burned away his entrails.
20. 20He, while tormented, said, “O good and holy contest, in which for the sake of religion, we kindred have been called to the arena of pain, and have not been conquered.
21. 21For religious understanding, O tyrant, is unconquered.
22. 22Armed with upright virtue, I also will depart with my kindred.
23. 23I, too, bearing with me a great avenger, O inventor of tortures, and enemy of the truly pious.
24. 24We six youths have destroyed your tyranny.
25. 25For isn’t your inability to overrule our reasoning, and to compel us to eat the unclean, your destruction?
26. 26Your fire is cold to us. Your racks are painless, and your violence harmless.
27. 27For the guards not of a tyrant but of a divine law are our defenders. Through this we keep our reasoning unconquered.”

World English Bible (WEB), public domain. Published by eBible.org (https://ebible.org/web/). "World English Bible" is a trademark of eBible.org. Public Domain. Sources and licences