4 Maccabees 17

1Some of the king’s guards also said that when she too was about to be seized for death, she threw herself onto the pyre so that they might not touch any part of her body.

2O mother, who with your seven children brought down the tyrant’s violence, and nullified his evil schemes, and displayed the nobility of faith.

3For just as you, like a roof firmly established upon the pillar of the children, bravely bore the earthquake through tortures without wavering,

4Therefore take courage, O mother of a holy soul, holding fast the hope of endurance with noble courage toward God.

5Not so does the moon stand in majesty in heaven with the stars, as you, having guided your seven sons, equal to the stars, toward godliness, have come to stand honored before God and have been established in heaven with them.

6For your childbearing was from Abraham the child.

7But if it were possible for us, as for a painter, to depict the godliness of your story, would not those who looked on shudder at a mother of seven children enduring varied tortures, because of godliness, all the way to death?

8For it would indeed have been fitting to inscribe even these words on his very tombstone, spoken as a memorial for those of the nation:

9Here lie buried an aged priest, and an aged woman, and seven children, because of a tyrant’s violence, who wanted to abolish the commonwealth of the Hebrews.

10These also vindicated the nation, looking to God and enduring torments even to death.

11For truly the contest that came about through them was divine.

12For virtue was then presiding over the contest for those being tested through endurance; the victory was in incorruptibility, in long-lasting life.

13Eleazar was taking the lead in the contest; the mother of the seven sons was competing like an athlete; and the brothers were contending.

14The tyrant kept struggling, but the world and the life of mankind were watching.

15But godliness won, crowning its own athletes.

16Who did not marvel at the athletes of the law of truth? Who was not astonished?

17Indeed, the tyrant himself and all their council marveled at their endurance, because of which they now stand beside the divine throne and live the blessed age.

18For Moses says, “And all the holy ones are under your hands.”

19And so these men also, having been made holy through God, have been honored not only with this honor, but also because through them our nation did not let the enemies prevail,

20and that the tyrant should be punished and the homeland should be purified.

21and that the tyrant should be punished and the homeland purified.

22as though they had become a ransom for the sin of the nation, and through the blood of those devout ones and their propitiatory death, divine providence preserved Israel, though it had been mistreated before.

23For when the tyrant Antiochus saw their courage and virtue and their endurance in tortures, he proclaimed their endurance as an example to his soldiers.

24And it made them noble and courageous in infantry combat and siege warfare, and after sacking them, he conquered all the enemies.