4 Maccabees 15:19-21

Common English Bible

¹⁹ You didn’t cry out loud when you looked into each one’s eyes, gripped by their own pain, or when you saw on the faces the signs of death approaching. ²⁰ You didn’t burst into tears when you saw the burned flesh of one child piling up on the burned flesh of the others, severed hands on severed hands, severed heads beside severed heads, bodies piled up on bodies, or when you saw the place filling with many spectators of their torture.

²¹ The children’s voices calling out to their mother from the midst of their torture held her attention more strongly than the Sirens’ singing or the song of swans captures the attention of those who hear them.