4 Maccabees 12

1And as he too died blessedly, after being thrown into the cauldron, the seventh came forward, the youngest of all.

2Whom the tyrant pitied, even though he had been cruelly mistreated by his brothers, seeing that he was already wearing the chains,

3He sent for him to come nearer, and tried to encourage him, saying,

4You see the outcome of your brothers’ madness; for because of disobedience they have been tortured and have died. But you, if you do not obey, will yourself also die before your time, after being miserably tortured.

5But if you are persuaded, you will be a friend, and you will have charge of the affairs of the kingdom.

6And while urging these things, he sent for the boy’s mother, so that, having pity on her after she had been deprived of so many sons, he might persuade her to make the one remaining compliant for his deliverance.

7and when his mother had encouraged him in the Hebrew language, as we will tell a little later,

8Release me, he says, so that I may tell the king and all his friends who are with him.

9And, rejoicing especially over the young man's promise, they quickly untied him.

10And running up close to the frying pans, he said,

11“You unholy man,” she said, “most ungodly tyrant of all wicked men, were you not ashamed, after receiving good things and kingship from God, to kill his servants and torture the practitioners of godliness?”

12For these things, divine justice is storing up for you a denser and eternal fire and torments, which through the whole age will not release you.

13Were you not ashamed, though you are a man, most beastly one, to cut out the tongues of those who share the same sufferings and have come from the same elements, and after mutilating him in this way, to torture him?

14But those who died nobly fulfilled their godliness toward God;

15But you will wail miserably for putting to death, without cause, the champions of virtue.

16Therefore, when he himself was about to die, he said,

17I will not renounce the testimony of my brothers.

18But I call upon the God of my fathers, that he may be merciful to my nation.

19But even in the present life, and after you die, he will punish you.

20And after praying these things, he threw himself onto the frying pans; and so he died.