2 Maccabees 6 — Greek text and reception

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Not long afterward the king sent an elderly Athenian to compel the Jews to depart from their ancestral laws and cease conducting their lives according to God's laws,

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and also to defile the temple in Jerusalem and name it for Olympian Zeus, and the one at Gerizim for Zeus the Protector of Strangers, in keeping with those who inhabited the place.

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The intensification of the evil was harsh and wholly grievous.

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For the temple was filled by the nations with debauchery and revels. They dallied with prostitutes, had intercourse with women in the sacred enclosures, and also brought inside things that were unfit.

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The altar was filled with forbidden things excluded by the laws.

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It was impossible to keep the Sabbath, observe ancestral festivals, or even profess simply to be a Jew.

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With bitter compulsion they were led to partake of sacrificial entrails on the king's monthly birthday celebration. When the festival of Dionysus came, they were compelled to carry ivy and march in procession for Dionysus.

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At Ptolemy's suggestion a decree also went out to the neighboring Greek cities, to follow the same policy against the Jews and make them partake of sacrificial entrails,

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and to slaughter those who would not choose to adopt Greek customs. Thus one could see the misery that had come upon them.

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Two women were brought forward for circumcising their children. They hung the infants from the women's breasts, paraded the women publicly through the city, and hurled them down from the wall.

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Others, who had gathered in nearby caves to observe the seventh day secretly, were reported to Philip and burned together, because their reverence for the most holy day's dignity restrained them from defending themselves.

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I therefore urge those who encounter this book not to shrink back because of the disasters, but to consider these punishments as intended for the discipline of our people, not their destruction.

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For it is a sign of great kindness that those who act impiously are not left alone for long, but immediately encounter penalties.

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For the Master has not determined to deal with us as with the other nations, patiently waiting to punish them until they have reached the full measure of sins,

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so that He may not take vengeance on us afterward, when we have reached the end of our sins.

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Therefore He never withdraws His mercy from us. Though He disciplines through disaster, He does not abandon His own people.

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Let these things have been said by us as a reminder only; we must now return briefly to the narrative.

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A certain Eleazar, one of the foremost scribes, a man already advanced in age and most handsome in appearance, was being forced to open his mouth and eat pork.

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Choosing a glorious death rather than a defiled life, he went of his own accord to the torture frame,

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having spat it out, as those ought to approach who persevere in refusing things it is unlawful to taste, even for love of life.

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Those appointed to oversee the unlawful eating of sacrificial entrails, because of their long acquaintance with the man, took him aside and urged him to bring meat prepared by himself that he could lawfully use, but to pretend that he was eating the sacrificial meat ordered by the king.

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By doing this, they said, he would be released from death and receive humane treatment because of his old friendship with them.

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But he adopted a noble resolve, worthy of his age, the dignity of his old age, his acquired and distinguished gray hair, his excellent conduct from childhood, and still more the holy legislation established by God. Accordingly he declared at once that they should send him to Hades.

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“For it is unworthy of our age to pretend, lest many of the young suppose that Eleazar, at ninety years of age, has gone over to foreign ways,

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and through my pretense, for the sake of a brief and momentary life, they themselves be led astray because of me, and I acquire defilement and a stain upon my old age.

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For even if I now escape the punishment inflicted by human beings, neither living nor dead shall I escape the hands of the Almighty.

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Therefore, by departing this life courageously now, I shall show myself worthy of my old age,

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and leave the young a noble example of dying willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.” After saying this, he went immediately to the torture frame.

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Those who led him changed their goodwill of a little earlier into hostility, because they considered his preceding words madness.

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As he was about to die under the blows, he groaned and said, “It is clear to the Lord, who possesses holy knowledge, that although I could have been released from death, I endure harsh bodily pains under the scourging. Yet in my soul I gladly suffer these things because I fear Him.”

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Thus he departed in this way, leaving his own death as an example of nobility and a memorial of virtue, not only to the young but also to the greater part of the nation.