4 Maccabees 10

1 When this one too had endured a death men still sing of, the third brother was led in, urged again and again by many to taste and save himself. 2 But he cried out and said, “Do you not know that the same father who sowed the ones who have died sowed me as well, that the same mother bore me, and that I was brought up on the same teachings? 3 I will not swear away the noble kinship of our brotherhood. 4 So bring against my body whatever instrument of vengeance you have. You cannot touch my soul — not even if you want to.” [a]

5 They took the man’s outspokenness bitterly. With joint-wrenching machines they pulled his hands and his feet out of joint, and levering them out of their sockets they took him apart limb from limb. 6 They broke back his fingers, his arms, his legs and his elbows. [b] 7 And when they could not throttle him by any means, they loosed him from the machines and flayed him in the Scythian way, taking the skin of his head and the very tips of his fingers with it. [c] 8 And at once they brought him to the wheel. Around it the joints of his spine were pulled apart, and he watched his own flesh torn to shreds and the blood running down in drops from his inward parts.

9 And as he was about to die he said, 10 “We suffer this, you vilest of rulers, for God’s training and virtue. [d] 11 You, for your ungodliness and your murdering, will endure torments that are never broken off.”

12 When he too had died as a brother of theirs should, they dragged the fourth forward, saying, 13 “Do not go mad with the same madness as your brothers. Obey the king and save yourself.” 14 But he said to them, “You have no fire hot enough to turn on me and make me play the coward. 15 By the blessed death of my brothers, by the everlasting ruin of the ruler, and by the unending life of the devout, I will not deny the noble brotherhood. 16 Think up your torments, ruler, so that through them too you may learn that I am brother to the men you tormented before me.”

17 When Antiochus heard this — blood-drinking, murderous, vile beyond all men — he ordered his tongue cut out. 18 But he said, “Even if you take away the instrument of my voice, God hears those who are silent too. 19 See — my tongue is already stretched out. Cut it off. You will not cut out our reason along with it. [e] 20 Gladly we have the limbs of our body cut away for God. 21 But God will come after you quickly, for the tongue you are cutting out sings the songs of God.”