The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 06
1 Not long after this, the king sent out †an
old man of Athens to compel the Jews to
depart from the laws of their fathers and
not to live by the laws of God,
2 and also to pollute the sanctuary in
Jerusalem and to call it by the name of
OlympianZeus, andto callthe sanctuary in
Gerizim by the name of Zeus the Protector
of foreigners, even as the people who lived
in that place did.
3 The visitation ofthis evil was harsh and
utterly grievous.
4 For the temple was filled with debauchery and
reveling by the heathen, who ‡ dallied with
prostitutes, and had intercourse
with women within the sacred precincts,
and moreover brought inside things that
were not appropriate.
5 The altar was filled with those abominable
things which had been prohibited
by the laws.
6 A man could neither keep the Sabbath,
nor observe the feasts of their ancestors,
nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew.
7 On the day of the king’s birth every
month, they were led along with bitter
constraint to eat of the sacrifices. When
the feast of Dionysia came, they were compelled
to go in procession in honor of
Dionysus, wearing wreaths of ivy.
8 A decree went out to the neighboring
Greek cities, by the suggestion of Ptolemy,
that they should observe the same conduct
against the Jews, and should make them
eat of the sacrifices,
9 and that they should kill those who
didn’t choose to go over to the Greek rites.
So the present misery was for all to see.
10 For example, two women were
brought in for having circumcised their
children. These, when they had led them
publicly around the city with the babes
hung from their breasts, they threw down
headlong from the wall.
11 Others who had run together into the
caves nearby to keep the seventh day secretly,
were betrayed to Philip and were all
burned together, because their piety kept
them from defending themselves, in view
of the honor of that most solemn day.
12 I urge those who read this book to
not be discouraged because of the calamities,
but recognize that these punishments
were not for the destruction, but for the
chastening of our race.
13 For indeed it is a sign of great kindness
that those who act impiously are not
let alone for a long time, but immediately
meet with retribution.
14 For in the case ofthe other nations, the
Sovereign Lord waits patiently to punish
them until they have attained to the full
measure of their sins; but not with us,
15 that he may not take vengeance on us
afterward,§ when we have come to the†
height of our sins.
16 Therefore he never withdraws his
mercy from us; but though he chastens
with calamity, he doesn’t forsake his own
people.
17 However let this that we have spoken
suffice to remind you; but after a few
words, we must come to the narrative.
18 Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, a
man already well advanced in years, and
of a noble countenance, was compelled to
open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh.
19 But he, welcoming death with honor
rather than life with defilement, advanced
of his own accord to the instrument of
torture, but first spat out the flesh,
20 asmenoughtto come who are resolute
to repel such things as not even for the
natural love of life is it lawful to taste.
21 But those who had the charge of that
forbidden sacrificial feast took the man
aside, for the acquaintance which of old
times they had with him, and privately
implored him to bring flesh of his own
providing, such as was proper for him to
use, and to make as if he did eat of the
flesh from the sacrifice, as had been
commanded by the king;
22 that by so doing he might be delivered
from death, and so his ancient friendship
with them might be treated kindly.
23 But he, having formed a high resolve,
and one that became his years, the dignity
of old age, and the gray hairs‡ which he
had reached with honor, and his excellent§
education from a child, or rather the
holy laws† of God’s ordaining, declared his
mind accordingly, bidding them to quickly
send him to Hades.
24 “For it doesn’t become our years to
dissemble,” he said, “that many of the young
should suppose that Eleazar, the man of
ninety years, had gone over to an alien
religion;
25 and so they, by reason of my deception,
and for the sake of this brief and momentary
life, would be led astray because
of me, and I defile and disgrace myself in
my old age.
26 For eveniffor the presenttime I would
remove from me the punishment of men,
yet whether I live or die, I wouldn’t escape
the hands of the Almighty.
27 There fore, by bravely parting with my
life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age,
28 and ‡leave behind a noble example
to the young to die willingly and nobly a
glorious death for the revered and holy
laws.” When he had said these words, he went
immediately to the instrument of torture.
29 § When they changed the good will
they bore toward him a little before into
ill will because these words of his were, as
they thought, sheer madness,
30 and when he was at the point to die
with the† blows, he groaned aloud and
said, “To the Lord, who has the holy
knowledge, it is manifest that, while
I might have been delivered from death,
I endure severe pains in my body by being
scourged; but in soul I gladly suffer these
things because of my fear of him.”
31 So this man also died like this, leaving
his death for an example of nobleness and
a memorial of virtue, not only to the young
but also to the great body of his nation.