The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 14
1 More that this, they even urged them
on to this mistreatment; so that they not
only despised pains themselves, but they
even got the better of their affections of
brotherly love.
2 Reasoning is more royal than a king,
and freer than freemen!
3 What a sacred and harmonious concert
of the seven kindred as concerning piety!
4 None of the seven youths turned cowardly
or shrank back from death.
5 But all of them, as though running the
road to immortality, hastened on to death
through tortures.
6 For just as hands and feet are moved
sympathetically with the directions of the
soul, so those holy youths agreed to death
for religion’s sake, as through the
immortal soul of religion.
7 O holy seven of harmonious kindred!
For as the seven days of creation, about
religion,
8 so the youths, circling around the number
seven, annulled the fear of torments.
9 We now shudder at the recital of the
affliction of those young men; but they not
only saw, and not only heard the immediate
execution ofthe threat, but undergoing
it, persevered; and that through the pains of fire.
10 What could be more painful? For
the power of fire, being sharp and quick,
speedily dissolved their bodies.
11 Don’t think it wonderful that reasoning
ruled over those men in their torments,
when even a woman’s mind despised more manifold pains.
12 For the mother of those seven youths
endured the rackings of each of her children.
13 Consider how comprehensive is the
love of offspring, whichdraws every one to
sympathy of affection,
14 where irrational animals possess a
similar sympathy and love for their
offspring with men.
15 The tame birds frequenting the roofs
of our houses defend their fledglings.
16 Others build their nests, and hatch
their young, on the tops of mountains and
in the precipices of valleys, and the holes
and tops of trees, and keep away the intruder.
17 If not able to do this, they fly circling
round them in agony of affection, calling
out in their own note, and save their
offspring in whatever manner they are able.
18 But why should we point attention to
the sympathy toward children shown by
irrational animals?
19 Even bees, at the season of honeymaking,
attack all who approach, and
pierce with their sting, as with a sword,
those who draw near their hive, and repel
them even to death.
20 But sympathy with her children didn’t
turn away the mother of the young men,
who had a spirit kindred with that of Abraham.