4 Maccabees 16

1If, then, even a woman—an old woman and a mother of children—endured the tortures up to death while seeing the sufferings of her children, godly reason is master of the passions.

2So I have shown that not only did men master the passions, but even a woman despised the greatest tortures.

3And the lions around Daniel were not so savage, nor the blazing furnace with its fiercest fire against Mishael, as that mother's own nature was inflamed by love for her children when she saw her seven sons being tortured.

4But by the reasoning of godliness the mother extinguished passions so many and so great.

5For consider this also: if the woman had been fainthearted, though she was a mother, she would have wailed over them; and perhaps she would have spoken like this:

6Alas for me indeed, thrice-wretched many times over! Though I bore seven children, I have become the mother of none.

7O seven futile pregnancies, and seven useless ten-month terms, and fruitless nursing, and miserable suckling.

8In vain, O children, did I endure many birth pains for you, and the more grievous anxieties of raising you.

9O my children—some unmarried, and others married but childless—I will not see your children, nor will I be counted blessed when I am called grandmother.

10O I, the mother of many and of beautiful children, a widow and alone, much-lamenting woman!

11who, even if I were not to die, would bury some one of my sons. But with this lament the holy and God-fearing mother bewailed none of them,

12Nor did she try to turn any of them away so that they might not die, nor did she grieve as they were dying.

13But, having a mind like adamant, and sending the number of her sons on to immortality, she was all the more urging them toward death for the sake of godliness, pleading with them.

14O mother, soldier of devotion to God, though old and a woman, by endurance you conquered even a tyrant, and in deeds and words you were found stronger than a man.

15For even when you were arrested with your children, you stood watching Eleazar being tortured, and—

16you were saying to the children in the Hebrew language, “O children, noble is the contest to which, having been called for the testimony of the nation, you must struggle earnestly.”

17willingly for the ancestral law. For it is shameful that this old man should endure the pains that come because of godliness, but you—

18Do not let the younger men be terrified by the tortures. Remember that for the sake of the God of the world you have partaken of this, and have enjoyed life;

19And because of this, you ought to endure every pain for the sake of God.

20for whose sake even our father Abraham hurried to slaughter Isaac, his son, the ancestor of the nation, and, seeing the ancestral hand bearing the sword descending upon him, did not shrink back.

21And Daniel the righteous man was thrown to the lions; and Hananiah and Azariah and Mishael were hurled into a furnace of fire, and they endured because of God.

22So you also, having the same faith toward God, do not be distressed.

23For, though they knew that reverence toward God is not irrational, they did not shrink back from the pains.

24By these words the mother of seven, encouraging each one of her sons, persuaded them rather to die than to transgress the commandment of God;

25And even more, by seeing this—that after dying for God they live to God, just as Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the patriarchs do—