4 Maccabees, Chapter 16

¹If, then, even a woman, and that an aged one, and the mother of seven children, endured to see her children's torments even unto death, confessedly religious reasoning is master even of the passions. ²I have proved, then, that not only men have obtained the mastery of their passions, but also that a woman despised the greatest torments. ³And not so fierce were the lions round Daniel, nor the furnace of Misael burning with most vehement fire, as that natural love of children burned within her, when she beheld her seven sons tortured. ⁴But with the reasoning of religion the mother quenched passions so great and powerful. ⁵For we must consider also this: that, had the woman been faint-hearted, as being their mother, she would have lamented over them; and perhaps might have spoken thus: ⁶Ah! wretched I, and many times miserable; who having born seven sons, have become the mother of none. ⁷O seven useless childbirths, and seven profitless periods of labour, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings at the breast. ⁸Vainly, for your sakes, O sons, have I endured many pangs, and the more difficult anxieties of rearing.

⁹Alas, of my children, some of you unmarried, and some who have married to no profit, I shall not see your children, nor be felicitated as a grandmother. ¹⁰Ah, that I who had many and fair children, should be a lone widow full of sorrows! ¹¹Nor, should I die, shall I have a son to bury me. ¹²Nor did she divert any of them from death, nor grieve for them as for the dead. ¹³But as one possessed with an adamantine mind, and as one bringing forth again her full number of sons to immortality, she rather with supplications exhorted them to death in behalf of religion. ¹⁴O woman, soldier of God for religion, thou, aged and a female, hast conquered through endurance even a tyrant; and though but weak, hast been found more powerful in deeds and words. ¹⁵For when thou wast seized along with thy children, thou stoodest looking upon Eleazar in torments, and saidst to thy sons in the Hebrew tongue, ¹⁶O sons, noble is the contest; to which you being called as a witness for the nation, strive zealously for the laws of your country.

¹⁷For it were disgraceful that this old man should endure pains for the sake of righteousness, and that you who are younger should be afraid of the tortures. ¹⁸Remember that through God ye obtained existence, and have enjoyed it. ¹⁹And on this account ye ought to bear every affliction because of God. ²⁰For whom also our father Abraham was forward to sacrifice Isaac our progenitor, and shuddered not at the sight of his own paternal hand descending down with the sword upon him. ²¹And the righteous Daniel was cast unto the lions; and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, were slung out into a furnace of fire; yet they endured through God. ²²You, then, having the same faith towards God, be not troubled. ²³For it is unreasonable that they who know religion should not stand up against troubles. ²⁴With these arguments, the mother of seven, exhorting each of her sons, over-persuaded them from transgressing the commandment of God.

²⁵And they saw this, too, that they who die for God, live to God; as Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs.