4 Maccabees 17 — WEBC
17Verse 1Some of the spearbearers said that when she herself was about to be seized for the purpose of being put to death, she threw herself on the pile, rather than let them touch her body.Verse 2O you mother, who together with seven children destroyed the violence of the tyrant, and rendered void his wicked intentions, and exhibited the nobleness of faith!Verse 3For you, like a house bravely built on the pillar of your children, bore the shock of tortures without swaying.Verse 4Cheer up, therefore, O holy-minded mother! Hold the firm hope of your steadfastness with God.Verse 5Not so gracious does the moon appear with the stars in heaven, as you are established as honorable before God, and fixed in the sky with your sons whom you illuminated with religion to the stars.Verse 6For your bearing of children was after the manner of a child of Abraham.Verse 7If it were lawful for us to paint as on a tablet the religion of your story, the spectators wouldn’t shudder at seeing the mother of seven children enduring for the sake of religion various tortures even to death.Verse 8It would have been a worthwhile thing to have inscribed on the tomb itself these words as a memorial to those of the nation,Verse 9“Here an aged priest, an aged woman, and seven sons, are buried through the violence of a tyrant, who wished to destroy the society of the Hebrews.Verse 10These also avenged their nation, looking to God, and enduring torments to death.”Verse 11For it was truly a divine contest which was carried through by them.Verse 12For at that time virtue presided over the contest, approving the victory through endurance, namely, immortality, eternal life.Verse 13Eleazar was the first to contend. The mother of the seven children entered the contest, and the kindred contended.Verse 14The tyrant was the antagonist; and the world and living men were the spectators.Verse 15Reverence for God conquered, and crowned her own athletes.Verse 16Who didn’t admire those champions of true legislation? Who were not amazed?Verse 17The tyrant himself, and all their council, admired their endurance,Verse 18through which, they also now stand beside the divine throne and live a blessed life.Verse 19For Moses says, “All the saints are under your hands.”Verse 20These, therefore, having been sanctified through God, have been honored not only with this honor, but that also by the fact that because of them, the enemy didn’t overcome our nation.Verse 21That tyrant was punished and their country purified.Verse 22For they became the ransom to the sin of the nation. The Divine Providence saved Israel, which was afflicted before, by the blood of those pious ones and the death that appeased wrath.Verse 23For the tyrant Antiochus, looking to their courageous virtue and to their endurance in torture, proclaimed that endurance as an example to his soldiers.Verse 24They proved to be to him noble and brave for land battles and for sieges; and he conquered and stormed the towns of all his enemies.