4 Maccabees 12

1 When this one too had died a blessed death, thrown down into the cauldron, the seventh came forward, the youngest of them all. 2 The ruler pitied him — for all that the boy’s brothers had reviled him bitterly — and seeing the chains already on him, he sent for him to be brought closer and tried to win him over. He said, [a] 3 “You see how your brothers’ madness ended: they were racked and died because they would not be persuaded. 4 You too, if you will not be persuaded, will be tormented, poor wretch, and die before your time. 5 But if you are persuaded, you will be my friend, and you will have charge of the affairs of the kingdom.”

6 And while he was urging this on him, he sent for the boy’s mother, so that by showing mercy to a woman robbed of so many sons he might push the one who was left toward the obedience that would rescue him. 7 But his mother urged him on in the Hebrew tongue — as we shall tell a little later — [b] 8 and he said, “Untie me. Let me speak to the king and to all the friends who are with him.” 9 They were delighted above everything at the boy’s promise, and quickly untied him.

10 And he ran right up close to the pans 11 and said, “Unholy man — most ungodly ruler of all the wicked — were you not ashamed, when you had your good things and your kingdom from God, to kill his servants and to rack the men who train themselves in devoutness? [c] 12 For that, justice is storing you up for a fire thicker than this and everlasting, and for torments that will not let go of you through the whole age. 13 Were you not ashamed — a man yourself, and the most beastly of men — to cut out the tongues of men who feel what you feel and are made of the same elements as you, and to mangle them like this and torment them? 14 But they died nobly and filled out their devoutness toward God, while you will wail bitterly for killing men who contended for virtue, and killing them for nothing.”

15 And so he too, as he was about to die, said, 16 “I am no deserter of my brothers’ valor. [d] 17 I call on the God of my fathers to be merciful to our nation. 18 But you he will punish, both in the life you have now and when you are dead.” 19 And when he had prayed this, he threw himself into the pans, and so gave up his life.