The Koine Bible

And after not much time the king sent old Athenian to compel the Jews to depart from the ancestral laws and not to live according to the laws of God

and to defile also the temple in Jerusalem and to call it after Zeus Olympios, and the one in Garizim, as those who inhabited the place happened to call it, Zeus Xenios

And the intensity of the evil was grievous and hard for all.

For the temple was being filled with profligacy and revels by the nations, who dallied with prostitutes and in the sacred courts were lying with women, and were bringing in besides the things not fitting within.

And the altar was filled with unlawful things by those who had been separated from the laws.

and it was not possible either to keep the sabbath or to observe ancestral festivals or simply to confess to be a Jew

But they were being led with bitter compulsion to the king’s monthly birthday celebration; and when the festival of Dionysia had occurred, they were being forced, having ivy wreaths, to march in procession to Dionysus.

And a decree fell out to the neighboring Greek cities, Ptolemy being the one proposing to conduct the same treatment against the Jews and to show compassion

and those not choosing to go over to the Greek ways he was present to slaughter; therefore it was possible to see the present misery

For two women were led up having circumcised their children, and the infants they hung from their breasts; and having led them around the city publicly, they hurled them down against the wall.

But others, having run together nearby into the caves to keep the seventh day secretly, being reported to Philip, were burned together, because they were too scrupulous to help themselves according to the observance of the most sacred day

I therefore exhort those who come upon this book not to be dismayed because of the misfortunes, but to consider the punishments as not for destruction but for discipline of our race.

For the fact that those who act impiously are not let go for a long time but immediately fall into punishments is a sign of great beneficence.

For not as also upon the other nations does the Master patiently wait until, when they have come to the full measure of sins, he punish them, so also upon us he judged it to be

so that, when our sins have come to the end, later he may not punish us

Therefore he never indeed withdraws his mercy from us, but while chastising with calamity he does not forsake his own people

Nevertheless, let these things have been said to us for a reminder; but we must proceed briefly to the narrative.

Eleazar, one of the leading scribes, a man already advanced in age and most handsome in the appearance of his face, opening his mouth was being forced to eat swine’s meat

But he, who had undertaken death with good repute rather than life with disgrace, voluntarily went forward to the drum.

But spitting out in the manner in which it was necessary for those who remained to approach to defend themselves, of the things which it is not lawful to taste, because of the affection for life

But those appointed to the unlawful compassion, because of the knowledge of the man from ancient times, taking him aside privately, urged him to bring meat of which it was fitting for him to use, prepared by him, but to pretend as though eating the meat ordered by the king, from the sacrifice meat

in order that, having done this, he might be released from death and, because of the former friendship toward them, might obtain kindly treatment

But he, taking up a noble resolve, worthy of his age and of the preeminence of old age and of acquired and distinguished gray hair and of the most excellent conduct from childhood, rather, of the holy and divinely created law, accordingly declared quickly, saying to send him on ahead to Hades

For it is not worthy of our age to act hypocritically, so that many of the young, supposing that Eleazar, who is ninety years old, has gone over to foreign customs,

and let them themselves, because of my hypocrisy and because of the short and momentary life, be led astray through me, and let me acquire defilement and stain of old age

For if even for the present I shall escape the punishment from men, yet the hands of the Almighty neither while living nor having died shall I escape.

Therefore, by acting bravely now, I will show myself worthy of old age in exchange for life.

And leaving behind a noble example to the young, for the ready and noble dying for the august and holy laws, and having said such things, he immediately came to the drum.

but those who were leading him, having changed the favor toward him a little earlier into ill will because of the aforesaid words, as they themselves thought, to be madness

But being about to die by the blows, he sighed and said to the Lord who has the holy knowledge, It is manifest that, being able to be released from death, I endure bitter pains in the body, being whipped; but in soul I suffer these things gladly because of his fear.

And so he thus changed his life, leaving not only to the young but also to most of the nation his own death as an example of courage and a memorial of virtue