4 Maccabees 14

1Moreover, by urging them on to torture, they sought that they should not only despise the pains, but also master the emotions of brotherly affection for their brothers.

2The king’s thoughts were more royal and more free.

3the sacred and harmonious agreement of the seven brothers concerning godliness.

4None of the seven young men became cowardly, nor did they shrink back from death;

5But all of them, as though running on a road to immortality, were hurrying toward death through tortures,

6For just as hands and feet move in harmony with the directions of the soul, so those holy youths also, as if by the immortal soul of godliness, were in harmony with death for its sake.

7O most holy seven of harmonious brothers, for just as in the creation of the world the days are concerned with godliness,

8Thus the young men, dancing around the seven, encircled them, abolishing the fear of tortures.

9Now we, hearing of the affliction of those young men, shudder; but they, not only seeing it, and not only hearing the immediate word of threat, but also suffering it,

10What could be more painful than these things? For the power of fire, being sharp and brief, quickly destroyed the bodies.

11And do not consider it remarkable if reason gained the mastery over those men in their torments, since even a woman's mind looked down on more severe pains.

12For the mother of the seven young men endured the tortures of each one of her children.

13But see how intricate the affection of love for children is, drawing everything toward the sympathy of the inward parts.

14For even the irrational animals have toward the offspring born from them a sympathy and affection like that of human beings.

15For even among birds, some, making their nests on houses, protect their young.

16But in the peaks of mountains and the clefts of ravines and the hollows of trees and their tops, making nests, it gives birth and keeps away the one who approaches.

17But even if they could not prevent it, flying around them on every side, grieving in their affection, and calling to them in their own voice, they would help their children in whatever way they could.

18And why is it necessary to point out, by means of the irrational animals, the affection for their children?

19For even bees, around the time of making honeycomb, defend themselves against those who approach, and, as with iron, strike with their stinger those who come near their brood, and defend them to the death.

20But motherly affection for her children did not move the mother of the young men, who was of one spirit with Abraham.

21O reason, tyrant over the passions of children! And godliness is to a mother more longed for than children.

22a mother, with two things set before her—godliness, and the temporary safety of her seven sons according to the tyrant’s promise;

23He loved piety more, the piety that saves unto eternal life according to God.

24How can I describe the affection of parents for their children—the fervor that stamps into the small form of a child the marvelous likeness of soul and appearance, This is especially so because fathers make mothers more sympathetic toward those who have been born?

25For the more mothers are weak in spirit and more prolific, the more they love their children.

26But of all mothers, the mother of the seven became the most devoted to her children, she who, through seven pregnancies, had her affection for them deeply planted within her;

27and, though she was compelled to feel sympathy for them because of the many pains each one of them suffered, because of fear toward God she overlooked the temporary preservation of her children.

28But not only that; rather, because of the noble goodness of her sons and their obedience to the law, her motherly affection for them was even greater.

29For they were righteous and self-controlled, brave and noble-minded and loving toward their brothers, and so devoted to their mother that, even to the point of death, they obeyed her by keeping the law.

30But even so, although so many impulses of motherly love were drawing the mother toward sympathy, the all-varied tortures were not able by any one of them to turn aside her reason.

31But the mother urged each son individually, and all of them together, toward death for the sake of godliness.

32O sacred nature, and parents’ affections, and filial love toward parents, and nurture, and mothers’ unconquerable passions.