4 Maccabees, Chapter 17

¹And some of the spearbearers said, that when she herself was about to be seized for the purpose of being put to death, she threw herself upon the pile, rather than that they should touch her person. ²O thou mother, who together with seven children didst destroy the violence of the tyrant, and render void his wicked intentions, and exhibit the nobleness of faith! ³For thou, as a house bravely built upon the pillar of thy children, didst bear without swaying, the shock of tortures. ⁴Be of good cheer, therefore, O holy-minded mother! holding the firm [substance of the] hope of your steadfastness with God. ⁵Not so gracious does the moon appear with the stars in heaven, as thou art established honourable before God, and fixed in the firmament with thy sons whom thou didst illuminate with religion to the stars. ⁶For thy bearing of children was after the fashion of a child of Abraham. ⁷And, were it lawful for us to paint as on a tablet the religion of thy story, the spectators would not shudder at beholding the mother of seven children enduring for the sake of religion various tortures even unto death. ⁸And it had been a worthy thing to have inscribed upon the tomb itself these words as a memorial to those of the nation,

⁹Here an aged priest, and an aged woman, and seven sons, are buried through the violence of a tyrant, who wished to destroy the polity of the Hebrews. ¹⁰These also avenged their nation, looking unto God, and enduring torments unto death. ¹¹For it was a truly divine contest which was carried through by them. ¹²For at that time virtue presided over the contest, approving the victory through endurance, namely, immortality, eternal life. ¹³Eleazar was the first to contend: and the mother of the seven children entered the contest; and the brethren contended. ¹⁴The tyrant was the opposite; and the world and living men were the spectators. ¹⁵And reverence for God conquered, and crowned her own athletes. ¹⁶Who did not admire those champions of true legislation? who were not astonied?

¹⁷The tyrant himself, and all their council, admired their endurance; ¹⁸through which, also, they now stand beside the divine throne, and live a blessed life. ¹⁹For Moses saith, And all the saints are under thy hands. ²⁰These, therefore, having been sanctified through God, have been honoured not only with this honour, but that also by their means the enemy did not overcome our nation; ²¹and that the tyrant was punished, and their country purified. ²²For they became the antipoise to the sin of the nation; and the Divine Providence saved Israel, aforetime afflicted, by the blood of those pious ones, and their propitiatory death. ²³For the tyrant Antiochus, looking to their manly virtue, and to their endurance in torture, proclaimed that endurance as an example to his soldiers. ²⁴And they proved to be to him noble and brave for land battles and sieges; and he conquered and stormed the towns of all his enemies.