AND when this one also died a blessed death, being cast into the cauldron, the seventh son, the youngest of them all, came forward.
2But the tyrant, although fiercely exasperated by his brethren, felt pity for the boy, and seeing him there already bound he had him brought near, and sought to persuade him, saying: 'Thou seest the end of the folly of thy brethren; for through their disobedience they have been racked to death. Thou, too, if thou dost not obey, wilt thyself also be miserably tortured and put to death before thy time; but if thou dost obey thou shalt be my friend, and thou shalt be advanced to high office in the business of the kingdom.'
3And while thus appealing to him he sent for the boy's mother, in order that in her sorrow for the loss of so many sons she might urge the survivor to obey and be saved.
4But the mother, speaking in the Hebrew tongue, as I shall tell later on, encouraged the boy, and he said to the guards, 'Loose me, that I may speak to the king and to all his friends with him.'
5And they, rejoicing at the boy's request, made haste to loose him.
6And running up to the red-hot brazier, 'O impious tyrant,' he cried, 'and most ungodly of all sinners, art thou not ashamed to take thy blessings and thy kingship at the hands of God, and to slay his servants and torture the followers of righteousness?
7For which things the divine justice delivers thee unto a more rapid and an eternal fire and torments which shall not leave hold on thee to all eternity.
8Art thou not ashamed, being a man, O wretch with the heart of a wild beast, to take men of like feelings with thyself, made from the same elements, and tear out their tongues, and scourge and torture them in this manner?
9But while they have fulfilled their righteousness towards God in their noble deaths, thou shalt miserably cry "Woe is me!" for thy unjust slaying of the champions of virtue.'
10And then standing on the brink of death he said, 'I am no renegade to the witness borne by my brethren.
11And I call upon the God of my fathers to be merciful unto my nation.
12And thee will he Punish both in this present life and after that thou art dead.'
13And with this prayer he cast himself into the red-hot brazier, and so gave up the ghost.