AND thus no sooner did the tyrant conclude his urging of them to eat unclean meat than all with one voice together, and as with one soul, said to him:
2'Why dost thou delay, O tyrant? We are ready to die rather than transgress the commandments of our fathers.
3For we should be putting our ancestors also to shame, if we did not walk in obedience to the Law and take Moses as our counsellor.
4O tyrant that counsellest us to transgress the Law, do not, hating us, pity us beyond ourselves.
5For we esteem thy mercy, giving, us our life in return for a breach of the Law, a thing harder to bear than death itself.
6Thou wouldst terrify us with thy threats of death under torture, as if a little while ago thou hadst learned nothing from Eleazar.
7But if the old men of the Hebrews endured the tortures for righteousness' sake, yea, until they died, more befittingly will we young men die despising the torments of thy compulsion, over which he our aged teacher also triumphed.
8Make trial therefore, O tyrant. And if thou takest our lives for the sake of righteousness, think not that thou hurtest us with thy tortures.
9For we through this our evil entreatment and our endurance of it shall win the prize of virtue; but thou for our cruel murder shalt suffer at the hands of divine justice sufficient torment by fire for ever.'
10These words of the youths redoubled the wrath of the tyrant, not at their disobedience only but at what he considered their ingratitude.
11So by his orders the scourgers brought forward the eldest of them and stripped him of his garment and bound his hands and arms on either side with thongs.
12But when they had scourged him till they were weary, and gained nothing thereby, they cast him upon the wheel.
13And on it the noble youth was racked till his bones were out of joint. And as joint after joint gave way, he denounced the tyrant in these words:
14'O thou most abominable tyrant, thou enemy of the justice of heaven and bloody-minded, thou dost torment me in this fashion not for manslaying nor for impiety but for defending the Law of God.'
15And when the guards said to him, 'Consent to eat, that so you may be released from your tortures,' he said to them, 'Your method, O miserable minions, is not strong enough to lead captive my Reason. Cut off my limbs, and burn my flesh, and twist my joints; through all the torments I will show you that in behalf of virtue the sons of the Hebrews alone are unconquerable.'
16As he thus spake they set hot coals upon him besides, and intensifying the torture strained him yet tighter on the wheel.
17And all the wheel was besmeared with his blood, and the heaped coals were quenched by the humours of his body dropping down, and the rent flesh ran round the axles of the machine.
18And with his bodily frame already in dissolution this greatsouled youth, like a true son of Abraham, groaned not at all; but as if he were suffering a change by fire to incorruption, he nobly endured the torment, saying:
19'Follow my example, O brothers. Do not for ever desert me, and forswear not our brotherhood in nobility of soul.
20War a holy and honourable warfare on behalf of righteousness, through which may the just Providence that watched over our fathers become merciful unto his people and take vengeance on the accursed tyrant.'
21And with these words the holy youth yielded up the ghost.