4 Maccabees 15

1 O reason of her sons, ruler over the passions! O devoutness, longed for by a mother more than her own children! [a] 2 Two things were set before the mother: devoutness, and the rescue of her seven sons for a time, which was what the ruler had promised. 3 She loved devoutness more — the devoutness that saves into everlasting life with God. [b]

4 How could I ever paint the passions of parents who love their children? We seal a likeness of soul and of shape into the small imprint that is a child, and it is a wonder to see — and mothers above all, because of the passions, are set closer in feeling to the ones they bear than fathers are. [c] 5 For the weaker in soul mothers are, and the more children they bear, the more they love them.

6 Of all mothers, the mother of the seven children loved her children most. Seven times she carried a child, and each time tenderness for them was planted deeper in her; 7 through the many birth pangs she went through for each one, she could not help but feel with them; 8 and yet, because she feared God, she looked past the rescue of her children that would have lasted only for a time. [d]

9 Even so, her sons’ nobility and goodness and their ready obedience to the law only made her tenderness toward them greater. 10 For they were righteous and self-controlled and courageous and great of soul; they loved their brothers, and they loved their mother so much that they obeyed her, keeping the practices even to death. [e]

11 And yet, though so much in her love for her children was dragging the mother toward fellow feeling, over not one of them did the torments, for all their variety, have strength enough to turn her reason aside. 12 Instead the mother urged each son, and all of them together, on to death for devoutness. 13 O holy nature, and bonds of a parent’s love, and tenderness toward what is born, and the rearing of children, and the untamable passions of mothers!

14 Watching each of them racked and burned, the mother did not change, because of her devoutness. 15 She saw her children’s flesh melting around the fire, the toes of their feet and the fingers of their hands twitching on the ground, and the flesh of their heads pulled down as far as their beards, hanging in front of them like masks. [f]

16 O mother, put to the test now with pains more bitter than the birth pangs you had for them! 17 O woman, alone of all women, who gave birth to devoutness whole and unbroken!

18 Your firstborn breathing out his last did not turn you, nor the second, looking at you piteously in his torments, nor the third giving up his soul. 19 You watched the eyes of every one of them, in his torments, glaring like a bull’s at the same abuse; you watched their nostrils give the sign of their death — and you did not weep. 20 You saw children’s flesh burned away upon children’s flesh, hands cut off upon hands, heads struck off upon heads, dead falling upon dead, and the place made a common grave for your children by the torments — and you did not shed a tear. [g]

21 Not the melodies of the Sirens, not the voices of swans, draw their hearers to listen the way the voices of children draw a mother when they call to her in the middle of the torments. 22 With how great torments, and how many, was the mother herself tormented then, while her sons were being tormented on the wheels and with the branding irons!

23 But devout reason gave her heart courage in the very middle of the passions, and stretched her to look past her love for her children while the moment lasted. 24 Though she was watching seven children destroyed, and the racking in all its intricate variety, the noble mother undid it all by her trust in God. [h]

25 For it was as though she saw, in the council chamber of her own soul, formidable counselors — nature, and the bearing of children, and love of her children, and the racking of her children — 26 and the mother held two voting pebbles for her children, one that carried death and one that carried rescue, 27 and she did not give her verdict for the rescue that would have saved seven sons for a little while. 28 She remembered instead the God-fearing steadfastness of Abraham, whose daughter she was.

29 O mother of a nation, avenger of the law, you who hold your shield over devoutness, winner of the prize in the contest fought in the heart! 30 O nobler in steadfastness than males, and in endurance more courageous than men! [i]

31 For just as Noah’s ark carried the world in the flood that filled the world, and held out against the breakers, 32 so you, guardian of the law, flooded on every side by the passions and pressed hard by violent winds — the torments of your sons — held out nobly under the storms that came upon you for devoutness’ sake.