The Compiler’s Preface

The story of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, and the purification of the greatest temple, and the dedication of the altar,

The Martyrdom of Seven Brothers

It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and straps, to partake of unlawful pig’s flesh.

These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on.

When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying,

Do not fear this butcher but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.”

For our brothers, after enduring a brief suffering for everlasting life, have fallen under God’s covenant, but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance.

I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by trials and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God,

and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation.”

He appointed his brothers also, Simon and Joseph and Jonathan, each to command a division, putting fifteen hundred men under each.

Timothy himself fell into the hands of Dositheus and Sosipater and their men. With great guile he begged them to let him go in safety, because he held the parents of most of them and the brothers of some, to whom no consideration would be shown.

Their concern for wives and children and also for brothers and sisters and relatives lay upon them less heavily; their greatest and first fear was for the consecrated sanctuary.