4 Maccabees 12:4-6

Revised Standard Version

⁴ You too, if you do not obey, will be miserably tortured and die before your time, ⁵ but if you yield to persuasion you will be my friend and a leader in the government of the kingdom.” ⁶ When he had so pleaded, he sent for the boy’s mother to show compassion on her who had been bereaved of so many sons and to influence her to persuade the surviving son to obey and save himself.