4 Maccabees 9

1 “Why are you waiting, ruler? We are ready to die rather than break the commands our fathers gave us. 2 We would rightly be ashamed before our ancestors if we did not obey the law readily and take Moses for our counselor. [a] 3 Ruler, counselor of lawbreaking — hating us as you do, do not have more mercy on us than we have on ourselves. 4 We count your mercy, the mercy that would rescue us by making us break the law, harder to bear than death itself. 5 You try to frighten us by threatening us with death under torture, as though you had learned nothing a moment ago from Eleazar. 6 If old men of the Hebrews held to devoutness and endured torturing for it, then we who are young ought all the more rightly to die, with no regard for the tortures of your compulsion — the very tortures our old teacher beat. 7 Make your trial of us, then, ruler. If you put our souls to death for our devoutness, do not think you harm us by torturing us. 8 For by this ill-treatment and this endurance we shall carry off the prizes of virtue, and we shall be with God, for whose sake we suffer. [b] 9 But you, for the foul murder of us, will bear from the divine Justice everlasting torture by fire — and it will be measure enough.”

10 At these words of theirs the ruler was not only hard on them as men who had disobeyed; he was angry with them as men who were ungrateful. 11 So at his order the shield-bearers brought forward the eldest of them, tore his tunic open, and strapped his hands and his arms with thongs on either side.

12 When they had worn themselves out beating him with whips and had got nowhere, they threw him up onto the wheel. 13 Stretched around it, the noble young man came apart at the joints. 14 And with every limb breaking, he railed at the ruler and said, 15 “You most defiled of rulers, enemy of the justice of heaven, cruel to the core — I have murdered no one, I have done nothing ungodly, and this is the way you batter me: for holding my shield in front of the divine law.”

16 And when the spearbearers said, “Agree to eat, and you will be rid of the tortures,” 17 he answered, “Your wheel is not strong enough, you defiled servants, to choke my reason. Cut my limbs, burn my flesh, wrench my joints. 18 Through every torture you have I will persuade you that the children of the Hebrews alone cannot be beaten where virtue is concerned.”

19 While he was saying this they laid fire underneath and worked the lever that drives the wheel, stretching him tighter still. 20 The wheel was fouled with blood on every side. The heap of coals was put out by the dripping of his gore, and pieces of his flesh ran down around the axles of the machine. 21 The frame of his bones was cut bare by now, and still the great-hearted young man, a son of Abraham, did not groan. 22 Instead, as though he were being transformed in the fire into something imperishable, he bore the rackings nobly.

23 He said, “Imitate me, brothers. Do not desert your post in the contest I am fighting, and do not swear off the brotherhood of stout hearts you share with me. [c] 24 Serve in the holy and noble campaign for devoutness, and through it may his just and ancestral provident care become merciful to the nation and punish this accursed ruler.” 25 With these words the young man, holy in his bearing, broke off his life.

26 While everyone was still marveling at the soul in him that had held out, the spearbearers brought in the brother next in age after him. They fitted on iron hands with sharp claws and bound him to the engine and the catapult. 27 They asked whether he was willing to eat before being tortured, and heard the noble purpose in him. 28 Then those leopard-like beasts, with the iron hands, dragged all the flesh from the sinews of his neck up to his chin and stripped the skin off his head. He held out under that heavy pain and said,

29 “How sweet is every kind of death, when it is for the devoutness our fathers handed down!” And he said to the ruler, 30 “Cruelest of all rulers, do you not think that you are being tortured more than I am, when you see the proud reason of your rule beaten by our endurance for devoutness? 31 I make my hardship light with the pleasures that come by virtue, 32 but you are tortured in the very threats of your ungodliness. And you will not escape the justice of the divine wrath, you most defiled of rulers.”